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1 


LITERATURE 

ITS 
PRINCIPLES   AND    PROBLEMS 


LITERATURE 

ITS  PRINCIPLES  AND  PROBLEMS 


THEODORE  W.  HUNT,  Ph.D.,  Litt.D. 

Professor  of  English  in   Princeton    Uni-versity,  Author  of  "EnglisA 

Prose  and  Prose  JVriters,^^    ^^  Ethical   Teachings  in 

Old  English  Literature y"    etc. 


FUNK    y   WAGNALLS    COMPANY 

NEW    YORK    AND     LONDON 
1906 


Copyright,  1906.  bt 

FUNK    &  WAGNALLS   COMPANY 

{Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America] 

Published,  March,  1906 


TO 

THE    STUDENTS 

OF   OUR 

LITERARY    INSTITUTIONS 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/literatureitspriOOhunt 


CONTENTS 


part  Ifirgt 


CHAPTER  ONE 

FAQS 

Guiding    Principles     in    the    Interpretation    op 

Literature   3 

1.  Proper  Point  of  View.     More  than  one  possible. 

External  and  Internal.     Dominance  of  the  sub- 
jective. 

2.  True  Relation  of  the  Primary  and  Secondary.     Il- 

lustrations— Allen,  etc.     The  microscopic  method. 

3.  The   Importance  of    Beginnings.      Value    of    the 

Primitive  Folk-Lore.     Examples. 

4.  The  Notice  and  Use  of  Genuine  Contrasts  {a-d). 

Need  of  balance  and  catholicity. 

5.  Recognition  of  the  Unknown  Quantity  in  Litera- 

ture.     Examples — Complexity,    etc.     a-c).      The 
Law  of  Exceptions.     Evils  of  dogmatism. 

6.  The  Absence  of  Pre-judgments.     Examples  (a-b). 

7.  Constructive  and  Positive  Criticism. 

8.  Emphasis  of  the  Inner  Spirit  of  Literature.     The 

difficulty,  interest  and  benefits  of  the  study. 

CHAPTER  TWO 

A  Definition  of  Literature 20 

Difficulty  of  clear  definition.  History  of  opinion. 
Posnett's  four  causes  of  such  diversity.  Views  of 
Worcester,  Hallam,  Brooke,  Jebb,  etc.  Emphasis  of 
Posnett's  and  Bascom's  views.  Suggestions  as  to 
such  definitions  (1-3).  Statement  of  correct  defini- 
tion.    Involves  certain   elements  (1-4).     Consequent 


viii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

suggestions:  (a)  A  test  of  productions,  as  literary  or 
not.  (6)  A  test  as  to  degrees  of  literary  quality,  (c) 
Unity  and  diversity  of  literary  forms.  (cZ)  Union  of 
all  elements  required.  Evil  effects  of  their  separation. 
Literature  more  than  words.  Need  of  this  higher 
conception. 

CHAPTER  THREE 

Methods  op  Literabt  Study 36 

The  question  of  methods  an  open  one. 

1.  Literary  rather  than  linguistic.      The  linguistic 

element  subordinate.     Shakespeare.     What  the 
literary  method  involves. 

2.  Suggestive     and     Comprehensive.       Philosophic. 

What    it    involves.      A    protest    against   undue 
minuteness. 

3.  Logical  unity  and  sequence  in  English  Literature. 

Literary  periods  overlap  each  other. 

4.  Comparative.     England  and  the   Continent.     In- 

fluence of  Italy,  France  and  Germany. 

5.  Historical.     Golden  ages  reveal  it.     So,  in  ages  of 

decline. 

6.  Independent  and  Impartial.     Authors  of  the  first 

and  second    order.      Counter    Tendencies.      The 
Method  and  the  Man. 

CHAPTER  FOUR 

The  Scope  of  Literature — Literature  and  Science.    52 
Seen  in  light  of  definition  given.     Vinet,  etc.     Seen 
in  classification  of  types.     Ancient,    etc.     Posnett's 
classification  of  literature. 

1.  Local  or  Sectional.  2.  National.  Developed  by 
guiding  minds.  3.  The  World  Literature.  Iso- 
thermal lines.  Goethe's  conception.  Greek  Lit- 
erature. Literary  reciprocity.  One  of  the  tests 
of  literature  found  here. 
Discussion  of  relations  of  Literature. 


CONTENTS  ix 

PAGE 

I.  Literature  and  Science.  A  priori,  little  affinity. 
Pater,  Coleridge,  etc.  Tendency  to  discover  and 
exalt  a  relation.     Lanier  and  Devey. 

1.  A  Scientific  Method  in  Literature.     Observation, 

etc.     Induction.     A  science  of  literature. 

2.  Scientific  Forms  in  Literature.     Prose,  philosophic 

and  didactic.  Literary  criticism.  Seen  in  certain 
kinds  of  fiction.     Didactic  verse. 

3.  Furnishing  of  literary   material.      The    scientific 

imagination.  Contributions  from  Nature.  Shairp. 
Seen  in  the  vastness  of  the  universe.  Elements 
of  poetic  sublimity.  Coleridge,  Byron,  etc.  Kep- 
ler, Humboldt,  etc.  Seen  in  the  highest  minds. 
Lyell,  Herschel,  etc.  Science  in  Literary  form. 
Pater.     Richness  of  English  here.     Chaucer,  etc. 

This  relationship  essential  to  right  study.     Huxley. 

Science  and  Literature  have  their  respective  fields. 

Differences  exist.     Error  of  Huxley. 

Science  is  to  be  kept  within  its  limits. 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

Literature  and  Philosophy 

An  important  question.     Herbert  Spencer.     Use  of 
the  word,  philosophy. 

1.  Science  of  Thought  and  its  Expression.     Error  of 

excluding  the  mental.  Plato,  etc.  Emerson's 
view.    Vinet. 

2.  A  Philosophic  Method  in  Literature.     Introspect- 

ive. Essential  in  authorship  and  criticism. 
Schlegel.    The  intellectual  style.    Schopenhauer. 

3.  Mutual  Interaction  and  Indebtedness  of  Philosophy 

and  Literature.  Greek  literature  and  philosophy. 
Ueberweg,  etc.  Leibnitz  and  Hegel,  So,  in 
France,  in  the  eighteenth  century.  So,  in  Eng- 
land, in  Augustan  Age.  Pope,  etc.  Historic 
School  of  Hume.  Highest  type  of  each  tends  to 
the  other.     Burt,  etc. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

4.  Presence  of  Imaginatien  in  each.  Philosophic 
Imagination.  Wayland.  Illustrated  in  Dante. 
Idealistic  Philosophy.  Berkeley.  Plato.  Ex- 
amples. Each  to  be  restricted  to  its  area.  Pres- 
ent need  of  pressing  the  relationship.  German 
and  French  philosophers.  Kant,  etc.  So,  in 
Northern  Europe.  Danger  in  the  line  of  the  ab- 
struse. Pope,  Browning.  English  literary  his- 
tory shows  it.  The  Mystical,  Metaphysical  and 
Transcendental  Schools.  Influence  of  Edwin 
Arnold.  Middle  ground.  Leslie  Stephen,  etc. 
Rightful  primacy  of  philosophy  in  literature. 


CHAPTER   SIX 

Literature  and  Politics 85 

The  word,  Politics,  A  priori,  etc. 

A.  Grounds  of  Influence. 

1.  Civic  Questions  to  be  discussed.     Political  Litera- 

ture. 

2.  Literary  and  Political  Environment  often  the  same. 

3.  Authors  and  Statesmen  in  same  personality. 

B.  Specific   Forms    of    Political    Literature.      Mainly, 

prose.  Reasons. 

1.  Political  History.      Examples.       Descriptive,     (a) 

History  of  Political  Reconstruction.  History  of 
Politics,  of  Government.  History  of  Parties — un- 
partisan.  (6)  History  of  Political  Revolution. 
Action  and  Reaction.  French  Revolution.  His- 
tory of  Parties — partisan,  (c)  History  of  Polit- 
ical Reformation,  Church  and  State. 

2.  Political  Biography. 

3.  Political  Miscellany,     (a)  The  Political  Essay.     (6) 

The  Political  Oration — Written  and  Oral  Dis- 
course,    (c)  Political  Fiction. 

4.  Political  Poetry.     Satire.     Inferences  (a-e).     Liter- 

ature and  Life. 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAQB 

CHAPTER    SEVEN 

Literature  and  Language 106 

Earle's  view.  Opposed  by  others.  Agitated  by  Collins 
in  England. 

1.  Literary  study,  in  a  sense,  linguistic.     Language  a 

medium  of  literature.  Ways  in  which  language 
enters.  Authors  should  be  students  of  language. 
Good  English.  Alf  ord,  etc.  Authors  thus  classi- 
fied. Professors  as  teachers  of  language  and 
authors. 

2.  Dangerous  extreme  of  the  linguistic,     (a)   In  Liter- 

ary Criticism,  as  a  study  of  words.  (6)  In  Liter- 
ary Manuals.  Rolfe.  Due,  in  part,  to  Old  English 
study.  "Anatomists  of  Literature."  Moulton's 
view.  Influence  of  Germany.  French  school. 
Flourishes  in  times  of  decline.  Milton,  Addison. 
Eliminates  the  differentia  of  literature.  Lan- 
guage to  be  taught  in  the  light  of  literature.  Ex- 
ceptional cases.  Discussion  as  to  classics  ex- 
plained. The  Knickerbocker  School.  Language 
one  thing  ;  literature,  another.  Disciplinary 
value  of  literature. 

CHAPTER   EIGHT 

Literature  and  Literary  Criticism 121 

The  present,  an  age  of  criticism.  Bibliography. 
Not  studied  abstractly.  Meaning  of  the  term  criti- 
cism. Literary  criticism  illustrated.  Different  spe- 
cies of  criticism.  Definition  of  Literary  Criticism. 
Its  radical  elements.  Constructive  criticism.  Its 
present  status. 

I.  Primary  Purpose.      Arnold,    Brunetiere,    Lowell. 

Interpretation  and  Decision.  Qualities  needed  in 
the  critic. 

II.  Methods.  Various  views,  (a)  Historical.  Hal- 
lam,  Sismondi,  etc.  (6)  Textual.  What  it  in- 
volves, (c)  Esthetic.  Application  to  style,  (d) 
Philosophic — its  meaning. 


xii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

III.  Results,  (a)  Appreciation  of  Literature.  (&)  En- 
largement and  Improvement  of  Literature,  (c) 
Education  of  Public  Taste.  Problems  of  interest.- 
Reopening  of  the  Study.     Suggestions  (a-6). 

CHAPTER  NINE 

Literature  and  Life 139 

Language  of  Courthope  and  Vinet.  The  historical 
view.  Change  at  the  Revival  of  Learning.  Litera- 
ture and  Civilization.  English  literature.  Relation 
of  History  to  Literature.  Courthope.  An  Historical 
Method  in  Literature.  The  Historical  Spirit  therein. 
Hallam.  Literature  more  than  historical.  Taine's 
threefold  theory. 

1.  Literature  and  Race,  Shemitic  and  Aryan. 

2.  Literature  and  Environment.     Lake  School. 

3.  Literature  and  Epoch.     Golden  Ages. 
Literature  and  Personality  to  be  added. 

Human  Life  to  be  studied.  Examples.  Authorship 
thus  made  timely.  Piers  the  Plowman.  Literature 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  Permanence  of  Letters  thus 
conditioned.  Literary  forms  illustrative  of  this  vi- 
tality. 

1.  Fiction  as  the  interpreter  of  life. 

2.  Dramatic  Verse.     National  life  represented. 

3.  So,  in  Lyric  Verse. 

Danger  in  the  line  of  the  \induly  practical.  Applica- 
tion to  American  Literature.  Tendency  to  Commer- 
cialism.   All  true  literature  real  and  vital. 

CHAPTER  TEN 

Literature  and  Ethics 156 

The  word,  Ethics.     History  of  opinion.     Selkirk,  etc. 
European    Literary  History.     Rome,    etc.     Meaning 
of  the  ethical  in  literature.     Possnett.      Literature 
has  always  evinced  this  element. 
In  History,  Poetry,   Drama,   etc.      Its  explanation 


COiV^T^iYT/Sf  xiii 

PAGE 

easy.  Clerical  authors.  Brooke.  Reasons  for  this. 
Theories  of  Collins,  Shairp,  Huxley  and  Arnold. 

A.  The  danger  of  ultra-moralism   in  literature.     Sted- 

man.  Parochial  type.  Pietism  and  Puritanism. 
Taine's  rebuke  of  Addison.  So,  in  the  Georgian 
Era.  Thomson.  Young.  The  didacticism  of 
Wordsworth.     Arnold  of  Rugby. 

B,  Literature  and  unbelief,   as  identified.     Its  causes. 

Hume  and  Voltaire.  Its  forms  and  periods,  varied. 
So,  in  Greece,  etc.  Its  harmful  results.  Remedy 
found  in  a  new  order  of  philosophy.  Modern 
skeptical  literary  tendencies.  Ward,  Arnold,  etc. 
Especially  visible  in  verse,  in  the  form  of  despon- 
dency. Seen  in  Clough,  Goethe,  Byron.  Watson 
more  hopeful.  A  valid  connection  between  Let- 
ters and  Morals. 

CHAPTER  ELEVEN 
Literature  and  the  Arts 168 

A.  The  Liberal  Arts. 

Classification  of  the  Arts — Liberal,  etc.  The  liberal 
professions.  Literature,  a  liberal  art.  Seen  especially 
in  English  Literature.     Advantages  of  this. 

1.  Knowledge  gained  thereby. 

2.  Comprehensiveness  of  mind  and  view. 

3.  Scholarship  and  authorship  thus  connected,  (a) 
Objection  as  to  uneducated  authors — Pope,  etc.  (6) 
Objection  as  to  impeding  nature. 

Literature  and  the  Liberal  Professions.  Relation  to 
Divinity.  Relation  to  Law  and  Medicine.  To  Jour- 
nalism and  Education.  Distinct  views,  technical  and 
untechnical.  Literary  Institutions.  Authors  and 
Educators — Longfellow,  etc. 

B.  The  Fine  Arts— Esthetics. 

Fine    and    Useful    Arts — Symonds.      Literature,   an 
esthetic  product.     An  artistic  method   in  it.     Tech- 
nique.   An  artistic  spirit  and  purpose — Longinus,  etc. 
Two  dangerous  extremes. 
1.  Materialism. 


xiv  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

2.  Formalism.  Belles-Lettres.  Beneficent  work  of 
solid  writers — Bacon,  etc.  The  artistic  subor- 
dinate. Literature  as  a  Fine  Art,  different  in 
different  spheres.  Pronounced  in  poetry.  Rea- 
sons for  undue  ornateness.  (a)  An  inferior  view 
of  literature.  (&)  An  inferior  view  of  the  arts. 
Unity  of  the  arts  essential.  Literature,  a  compre- 
hensive art,  a  force. 

CHAPTER  TWELVE 

The  Mission  op  Literature 184 

Emerson's  "Uses  of  Great  Men."  High  character 
of  literary  work.  Prevalence  of  lower  views.  Litera- 
ture an  industry.  A  matter  of  ambition.  Of  pleas- 
ure.    Self-expression  the  end. 

1.  Involves  the    Conception    and    Interpretation  of 

Great  Ideas.     Literature  tested  here.    Dante,  etc. 

2.  Interpretation  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Age.     General 

and  specific  effects  sought.  Golden  ages  and 
Inferior  ages  reveal  it.  Literature,  a  social  and 
civic  power.     Greece,  etc. 

3.  Interpretation  of  Human  Nature.     In  drama,  fic- 

tion, etc. 

4.  Presentation  and  enforcement  of  high  Ideals.     In- 

volves imagination  and  sobriety.  One  of  the 
tests  of  authorship.  Is  literature  fulfilling  these 
conditions  ?  The  poetry  of  the  future.  Modern 
tendencies  unliterary.  Quantity  rather  than 
quality.  A  World  Literature.  Federation  of 
Authors. 


CONTENTS  XV 


part  Second 


CHAPTER  ONE 

PAGE 

The  Aims  of  Literary  Reading  and  Study  ....  203 
Use  of  the  term,    Literary.     A  form  of  study  now 
prominent.     Reasons. 

1.  Literary  Information,  Enlightenment.      Function 

of  a  Library.  Historical  Literature.  English 
History  on  its  literary  side. 

2.  Literary   Culture.     A   literary   word.     Literature 

a  Fine  Art.  Extreme  View.  Poetry.  Higher 
rank  accorded  it. 

3.  Literary  Discipline.   Reading  and  Study  accordant. 

Studious  Reading.  The  disciplinary  books  in 
prose  and  verse. 

4.  Incentive.    Stimulating  Literature.    Hence,  Great 

Books  to  be  read.  Helpful  and  Wholesome  Books. 
Characteristics  of  such  books  («-c).  Objection- 
able Books.  A.  Unmeaning.  B.  Unwholesome. 
C.  Unsettling.     Responsibilities  of  Readers. 

CHAPTER  TWO 

The  Genesis  and  Growth  of  Literary  Forms  .  .  213 
Permanent  and  variable  elements  in  literature.  Teu- 
tonic type,  as  distinct  from  the  Latin.  Courthope's 
view.  ••Conservatism"  in  Literature.  Old  and  Mid- 
dle English.  The  variable  Element.  Literary  Transi- 
tions— in  Germany,  Greece,  etc.  Proceed  by  a  law. 
"Movements  in  Literature."  General  and  special 
forms.  Prose  and  verse,  the  most  general.  Prece- 
dence of  verse,  in  time.  Reasons.  Prose  product, 
variable — Elizabethan,  etc. 

1.  Narrative  and  Descriptive  Prose — Alfred,  etc, 

2.  Forensic  Prose,  later. 

3.  Philosophic  and  Critical  Prose,  last. 


xvi  CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Two  emphatic  forms  of  prose:  A.  Satire.  Combines 
various  elements.  Questions  as  to  its  origin.  B. 
Prose  Fiction.  Question  as  to  its  origin.  So,  in 
Verse.     Relation  of  Verse  to  Prose. 

1.  Epic  verse.     Its  origin,  quality,  etc. 

2.  Dramatic  Verse.    The  Elizabethan  Drama.    Causes 

of  differing  degrees  of  excellence. 

3.  Lyric  verse.     Relation  of  lyric  and  dramatic.     In- 

ferences. 

4.  Didactic  and  Descriptive.     A.  The  Naturalness  of 

literature.  Chaucer.  Age  of  Elizabeth.  Litera- 
ture, a  growth.  B.  A  law  of  Evolution  in  litera- 
ture. Symonds.  So,  in  the  drama.  Literature 
and  Science.  C.  A  law  of  Decadence  in  literature. 
Disappearance  of  schools.  General  progress. 
The  spirit  of  literature  survives.  Literary  forms 
subordinate  to  life  and  character. 

CHAPTER    THREE 

Primart  Poetic  Types — General  and  Special     .     .  230 
Possible  classifications.     As  varied  as  style. 

A.  Devey's  threefold  division. 

1.  The  Oriental  or  Biblical. 

2.  The  Greek  or  South  European. 

3.  The  Gothic  or  Northern. 

B.  Convertible  terms. 

1.  The  Ethical  or  Subjective.  Poetry,  truth  and  faith. 

Emerson  and  Goethe,  as  distinct  from  Poe. 

2.  The  Classical  or  Esthetic.     The  technique  of  litera- 

ture.    The  Alexandrian  School. 

3.  The  Romantic  or  Objective.     School  of  feeling. 
C  The  Correct  Classification. 

I.  The  Creative  or  Mental.  Poetry  of  ideas.  Genius. 

II.  The  Impassioned  or  Emotional.     A  prominent 

element.     Seen    in    creative    verse.     A    spiritual 

quality. 

III.  The  Critical  or  Artistic.     Augustan.     Poetry  of 

Form.     Extreme  estimate  by  Gosse.     The  Place 


CONTENTS  xvii 

PAGE 

of  Imagination  in  each  type.     Tests  of  correctness 
of  classification. 

1.  In  the  accepted  Definitions  of  poetry.     Defined  in 

terms  of  each  type.     Includes  the  three. 

2.  In  the  accepted  Kinds  of  poetry — Epic,  etc.     Each 

Kind  shows  a  type.     Great  poems  evince  all. 

3.  In  the  accepted  Purposes  of  poetry,  mental,  etc. 

Each   type  has  its  purpose.     Great  poems  have 
all,  in  one. 

4.  In  the  accepted  Sources  of  poetry — Internal,  etc. 

In  great  poems,  combined. 

5.  In  the  accepted  Affinities  of  poetry.     Poetry  and 

Prose,  and  the  Fine  Arts.  In  great  poems,  com- 
bined. 
Suggestions  :  (o)  Exemplification  of  types  in  native 
and  foreign  verse,  (b)  Poetry,  a  gift,  a  passion 
and  an  art.  Poetic  Masterpieces  but  a  partial  ex- 
pression of  genius.  The  poet  greater  than  the 
poem.  Hence,  difficulty  of  interpretation  — 
Faust,  etc. 

CHAPTER    FOUR 

Primary  Prose  Types       246 

The  word — primary.  The  word— types.  Classifica- 
tion of  Types,  Periods,  Nations,  Authors,  etc. 
Specific  Types. 
1.  Historical  Prose.  Narrative.  Methods,  chrono- 
logical and  logical.  Province.  Biography  and 
History  Proper.  Qualities — Unity,  etc. 
II.  Descriptive  Prose,  imaginative.  Forms,  visible 
and  immaterial.  Fiction.  Poetical  Prose.  Qual- 
ities.    Vividness  and  Vigor. 

III.  Oratorical  Prose,  impassioned.     Forensic,  Judi- 
cial, Popular.     Suggestions  (a-b). 

IV.  Didactic  Prose.    Educational.    Definitions.    Phil- 
osophic.    Forms.     Final  Effect. 

V.  Periodical  Prose.  Characteristics,  Variety,  Brev- 
ity, etc.;  best  authors  use  it.  Forms — Travels, 
Journalism,  Letters,  Essays.     Suggestions  (1-4). 


xviii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    FIVE 

PAGE 

The  Historical  Development  of  Epic  Vebse  .    .    .  264 
Classification  of  Forms  : 
I.  Definition  of  Epic. 

II.  Origin,  ancient  and  natural.  Age  of  legend.  The 
epica  materia.  The  Epic,  a  growth.  Historical 
and  spontaneous. 

III.  Forms.     Classification  {a-d). 

A.  Primary. 

1.  Popular.       Folk    Epic.       Primitive.       Communal. 

Herder's  theory.     Grimm's. 

2.  Courtly.     Art  Epic.     Schlegel,  etc.     Their  combi- 

nation in  theory  and  history. 

B.  Secondary. 

1.  The  Allegorical.     Epic  of  Romance. 
2.  Ballads  and  Tales. 

IV.  Characteristics.  As  to  Structure.  Unity  and 
Dramatic  Element.  Scope,  etc.  (1-5)  Hence,  dif- 
ficult and  rare.  History  of  English  Epic.  Sug- 
gestions (a-c). 

CHAPTER   SIX 

Poetry 281 

A  discussion,  old  and  ever  new — Burke,  Courthope, 
etc.     Questions  opened.     Poetry  and  Poetics  as  dis- 
tinct— content  and  form. 
I.  The  Essentials  of  Poetry. 

1.  Thought.     The  poet,  a  thinker,  a  creator.     In  what 

sense  poetry  shall  be  intellectual.  More  promi- 
nent in  some  poetic  forms.  Thought,  to  be  in- 
direct. 

2.  Imagination  —  various     forms,    philosophic,    etc. 

Views  of  critics  as  to  prominence.  Bacon,  Mac- 
aulay,  etc.  Present,  in  all  its  functions — con- 
structive, etc.  Expression  of  it  varies.  Imagina- 
tion and  Fancy.     Must  keep  within  the  rational. 


CONTENTS  xix 

PAGE 

3.  Feeling — Wordsworth,  Milton,   etc.    Poetry  must 

be  vital,  varies  in  its  expression.  Its  comprehen- 
sive scope.     Hence  its  power. 

4.  Taste,  Theories  of  Taste.    Cousin,  Burke,  etc.    Defi- 

nition— Involves  Beauty.  Theories  of  Beauty — 
Plato,  Goethe.  Its  definition.  Esthetics,  Sub- 
limity. Agencies  of  its  cultivation  (a-&).  Ways 
in  which  it  embodies  itself.  Style.  Definition 
of  Poetry.  Poetic  Personality,  The  demands  of 
Verse. 

II.  Characteristics  of  Poetry. 

1.  Scope.     The  Imagination  gives  it  range.    Freedom 

of  the  poet,  limits  conceded.     Sanity  essential. 

2.  Rhythmic  Quality.     Poe,  Gummere,  Schlegel,  etc. 

Meaning  of  the  term.  Poetry  and  Music.  A  test 
of  poetic  excellence. 

III.  Uses  of  Poetry. 

1.  A  Revealing  Agent.     An  Interpreter.     Shairp,  etc. 

Seen  in  all  forms — Epic,  etc. 

2.  Elevating  and  Refining  Influence.     Longinus,  etc. 

The  language  of  the  ideal.  Devey,  Moral  Sublim- 
ity. Presence  of  Taste,  as  refining.  Culture.  The 
functions  of  the  stage  and  of  song.  Unworthy 
poets.     Explanation. 

3.  Pleasure,  defies  analysis.     Has  a  wide  field.     The 

unpoetic  soul.  The  Poetic  Spirit.  Relation  to 
the  Literary  Spirit.  Varies  in  authors,  people 
and  periods.     Their  coexistence. 


CHAPTER  SEVEN 

Poetics 300 

Previous  discussion.     The   importance  of    Form    in 
Poetry.     Structural  Beauty.     The  Component  Parts 
of  Poetic  Structure. 
I,  Verbal  Structure.     Characteristics. 


XX  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

1.  Figurative  Words.     Imagination  involved.     Sug- 

gestive Terms  are  symbolic.  Etymological  mean- 
ings thus  in  place.  Biblical  Verse,  symbolic.  So, 
dramatic  and  descriptive  verse. 

2.  Antique  and  Novel  Words.     A  poetic  element  in 

age.  A  partial  obscurity  allowable.  Language 
seen  at  its  sources.  Old  English.  Native  words 
thus  preferable.     Dialect  Poetry. 

II.  Textual  Structure.     The  use  of  the  sentence. 
Flexibility,  or  Variety,  its  main  feature.     Poetic  Li- 
cense.    Hence,  inversion,  paraphrase,    etc.     The 
danger  of  an  extreme.     Browning.     Old  English. 
A  test  of  excellence.     Longfellow. 

III.  Metrical  Structure. 

Definition  of  Terms — Verse,  Versification,  Rhythm, 
Meter.  Critical  opinion  as  to  its  necessity.  Sid- 
ney, Shelley,  Johnson  vs.  Goethe,  Poe,  etc. 
Rhyme.  Blank  Verse,  Alliteration,  Assonance. 
Foot,  etc.  Structure  and  Content  not  to  be 
sharply  divided.  Their  union  effected  through 
Rhythm  and  the  Poetic  Spirit.  Poets  classified 
at  this  point,  as  superior  or  inferior.  The  use  of 
meters  by  the  poets.  The  meters  of  Milton,  in  his 
epics  and  lyrics.  Blank  Verse  or  Couplet,  etc. 
Variation  of  feet,  line,  etc.  The  discussion  as  to 
Shakespeare.  Moulton,  etc.  Schools  and  Theories 
of  Poetry  here  classified.  Wordsworth,  etc.  The 
Romantic  and  the  Classical  Schools.  Genius  uni- 
fies and  fuses. 

Suggestions:  1.  Relation  of  Poetry  to  Esthetics.  Cur- 
rent view.  Dependent  on  definition  of  Beauty. 
Evils  attendant  vipon  error  here.  The  correct  view. 
2.  Poetic  Composition  and  Criticism.  A  literary 
exercise  vs.  linguistic  or  educational.  Benefits  ac- 
cruing to  the  student.  3.  The  Poetic  Outlook. 
Questions  involved.  Arnold.  Law  of  Periodicity 
in  Literature.  Possible  advance  in  one  direction. 
4.  Duty  of  liberally  educated  men  as  to  Poetic  In- 
terests. 


CONTENTS  XXI 

FAQE 

CHAPTER  EIGHT 

Prose  Fiction  as  a  Form  of  Literature 318 

Prevalence  of  Fiction — Causes. 

I.  Origin  and  Progress — Natural. 

Also  Historical,  following  social  development.  Be- 
ginnings unknown — Scandinavian,  etc.  Probably 
medieval.  Historical  Development  of  English  Novel 
— Malory,  etc. 

II.  Characteristics. 

1.  Idealism.    The  work  of  the  imagination.     Synony- 

mous terms,  fable,  etc. 

2.  Realism. 

3.  Pleasure,  primary.     Allied  to  poetry.     Question  as 

to  the  instructive  element. 

III.  Variety  of  Type.     Romance  and  Novel. 
Historical,  Descriptive,  etc.     Other  forms.     Political, 
etc.     Relation   to  other  literary  forms — Poetry.     To 
Narrative  and  Descriptive  Prose. 

Suggestions:  1.  Essentials  to  success  {a-c).  Imagina- 
tion. The  Ideal  Novel.  2.  Probable  permanence 
of  its  present  status. 

CHAPTER  NINE 

Open  Questions  in  Literature— 1 385 

Stable  and  variable  elements.  New  questions  a  sign 
of  life. 

I.  The  Relation  of  Prose  and  Verse. 

Differences  and  Resemblances.  Poetical  Prose, 
Prose  Poetry,  Prose  Fiction.  Freely  mingled  in 
authors  and  periods.     Shakespeare. 

II.  Relative  Rank  of  Epic,  Dramatic  and  Lyric  Verse. 
Re-opened,  Unsoundness  of  the  old  view.  Com- 
parison as  to  age.  Scope,  etc.  Emphasis  of  the 
dramatic.     Reasons. 

III.  The  Drama  and  the  Stage. 

The  Word,  di'ama.  View  of  Irving.  Literature  and 
the  Drama  normally  related.  Authors  and  Actors 


xxii  CONTENTS 

PAGB 

IV.  The  Drama  and  the  Novel. 
A  priori  view.     Common  definition  of  each.     Mac- 
ready,  etc.     Romantic  dramas  and  Dramatic  Novels. 
Historically  related.      The  dramatization  of  novels. 
Dramatist  and  novelist  in  one.     Literary  unity. 
V.  Generalization  and  Specialization. 
Literature  thus  related  to  Science  and  Philosophy. 
The  terms,  deductive  and  inductive.     The  dominant 
method  dependent  on  conditions.    Union  of  methods. 
Error   of    Moulton's    theory.      Tendency    to    undue 
specialization. 

VI.  Literary  Standards. 
The  standard — what  ?  An  area  of  freedom  of  opinion. 
Tendency   to    lower    standard.      Literary  Fashions. 
Maintenance  of  the  standard,  a  duty. 

CHAPTER  TEN 

Open  Questions  in  Literature— II 351 

I.  Relations  of  Literature  as  a  Written  Form  to  its  Oral 
Presentation. 

Some  differences — Literature  a  written  form.  Liter- 
ary ability,  one  thing;  ability,  another.  Different 
methods  and  aims.  Matthews  and  Jebb.  The  ora- 
torical quality  is  important.  The  Forms  of  Litera- 
ture, Prose,  and  Verse,  thus  classified.  Discussion  of 
Oratorical  Literary  Forms. 

1.  The  Oration  in  manuscript  form,   popular,  argu- 

mentive,  etc.  Written  for  delivery.  Webster. 
All  vigorous,  impressive  Literature,  oratorical. 

2.  The  Play,   Dramatic  verse,  adapted  to  delivery. 

Closet  Dramas,  Plays  that  fail.  Successful  Plays 
must  be  dramatic  and  theatric.  The  literary  qual- 
ity may  be  subordinate.  Shakespeare,  etc.  Ap- 
plicable in  the  critic  of  the  play.  The  actor  him- 
self, an  important  element.  Subordinate  Oral 
Forms — the  Novel,  Song,  Literature  Recitals. 

II,  Relation  of  Literature  and  Style — the  product  and 
the  Form. 


CONTENTS  xxiii 

PAGE 

Twofold  theory — External  and  Internal.  The  Es- 
thetic Critics.  Blair,  Macaulay,  etc.  The  Intel- 
lectual Critics.  De  Quincey,  Spenser,  etc.  Correct- 
ness of  the  latter  view.  Union  of  the  two  theories 
in  Personality.  "What  it  involves.  Literature  and 
Style,  a  unit.  Best  confirmed  among  best  authors. 
Literature  thus  allied  to  other  departments.  Style 
involves:  Vocabulary  and  Structure. 
III.  The  Literary  Spirit. 

1.  Elements  or  Characteristics.     Spirit  versus  Tech- 

nique. The  Spirit  and  the  Letter.  In  periods 
of  literary  decline,  the  letter  dominant.  Test  of 
true  critic  here.  Educational  Literature  at  fault 
here.  The  temptation  of  the  teacher  of  literature. 
"Analytics  of  Literature."  Spontaneity,  the 
main  feature.    Literary  License.    Involves  scope. 

2.  Special  Expressions  of  it,  dependent  on  conditions. 

Authors,  Peoples  and  Periods  differ.  Literary 
Institutions. 

3.  Methods  of  securing  it.     Literary  Activity  and 

Association.     Largely,  a  gift. 

4.  Its  value.     Literature  and  Life.     Literary  Spirit 

and  Literary  Taste. 


CHAPTER    ELEVEN 

Hebraism  and  Hellenism  in  Literature 367 

Statement  of  Matthew  Arnold's  theory.  Interpreta- 
tion of  terms.  Contrasts.  Poe's  theory.  Unsound- 
ness of  theory.  Raises  vain  questions.  Mental  nar- 
rowness of  the  critic.  True  theory.  Fusion  of  the 
two  views.  Endorsed  by  Keats,  Ruskin,  etc.  Illus- 
trations of  partial  theory.  Seen  in  Schools  of  English 
Verse.  Oriental,  etc.  In  Literary  Periods.  Puritan, 
Taine's  view  of  Puritans.  In  English  Authors.  Mil- 
ton and  Bunyan.  Illustrations  of  true  theory.  Seen 
in  schools,  periods  and  authors.  Arnold's  inconsist- 
ency. 


xxiv  CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Suggestions  :  (a)  Every  important  literature  involves 
each  element.  (6)  Hebraism  and  Hellenism  not 
the  whole  of  literature,  (c)  Higher  view  of  Liter- 
ature. 


CHAPTER    TWELVE 

The  Place  of  Literature  in  Liberal  Education  .  387 
Room  for  independent  judgment.  A  vital  question 
remaining,  Educational  Literature.  Reasons  for  in- 
creasing interest  in  it.  Agitation  in  England.  Col- 
lins. Prior  Questions.  What  is  Literature?  Its 
disciplinary  value.  Moulton,  etc.  Its  final  purpose. 
What  is  Liberal  Education — its  province,  etc.  ?  Hence, 
the  place  of  Literature,  prominent.  View  of  Scholars. 
Such  prominence  involves — (a)  The  readjustment  of 
the  curriculum.  Past  area  limited  by  other  interests. 
(6)  The  more  systematic  teaching  of  Literature.  Past 
neglect.  Low  views  of  Literature.  Schools  of  Liter- 
ature. Advantages  {a-c).  A  Literary  Laboratory. 
Suggestions:  (a)  The  Literary  Outlook.  (6)  Existing 
Needs.  (c)  Place  of  Literature  in  Technical 
Schools,     (d)  Place  of  English  Literature. 


PREFACE 


The  most  interesting  and  instructive  literary  study  is 
Literature  itself — its  foundations  and  sources;  its  prob- 
lems and  principles;  its  scope  and  spirit;  its  types  and 
tendencies,  aims  and  affinities.  As  difficult  a  study  as 
it  is  recompensing,  it  becomes,  at  the  outset,  a  mental 
exercise  of  a  high  and  healthful  order,  and,  as  it  is  con- 
scientiously pursued,  begets  an  increasing  desire  to  pur- 
sue it  further.  Thus  interpreted,  Literature  takes  its 
place  among  the  disciplinary  studies^  and  it  is  primarily 
firom  this  point  of  view  that  the  present  discussion  is 
conducted.  In  the  wide  variety  of  topics  suggested  by 
such  a  theme,  we  shall  discuss  a  few  of  those  that  seem 
to  us  most  fundamental,  trusting  that  others  may  be 
induced  to  extend  the  survey  into  equally  inviting  fields. 
It  is  especially  hoped  that  literary  students  in  our  higher 
institutions  of  learning  will  find  the  volume  stimulating 
and  healthful. 

Princeton,  IsT.  J., 

February,  1906. 


1 


PART    FIRST 


I 


CHAPTEE   ONE 

GUIDING   PRINCIPLES   IN   THE    INTERPRETATION    OF 
LITERATURE 

At  the  very  outset  of  our  discussions  emphasis  is 
needed,  of  the  fact  that  there  is  a  Science  of  Interpreta- 
tion, applicable,  as  such,  in  all  the  great  departments  of 
human  knowledge,  in  philosophy,  history,  language  and 
economics.  There  is  a  body  of  laws  or  principles  ar- 
ranged in  systematic  order  and  applicable,  as  a  system, 
for  the  guidance  of  the  student  in  the  examination  of 
these  respective  departments,  essential  to  the  securing  of 
the  best  results,  and  without  which,  indeed,  no  satisfac- 
tory progress  can  be  made.  So,  when  we  approach  the 
study  of  Literature,  with  primary  reference  to  its  inter- 
pretation, we  are,  at  once,  confronted  with  the  necessity 
of  the  scientific  method,  with  the  fact  that  there  is  a 
Science  of  Literature,  and  of  The  Interpretation  of  Liter- 
ature, an  order  of  discussion  based  on  the  presence  of 
well-established  literary  laws.  Such  critics  as  Knight, 
Shairp,  Spencer  and  Bascom  prefer  to  call  it.  The  Philos- 
ophy of  Literature.  Lewes  calls  it.  The  Principles  of 
Literature.  Huxley  and  Dowden  accept  the  term, 
Science  of  Literature.  Cranshaw  and  Mabie  prefer  the 
phrase — The  Interpretation  of  Literatui'e,  as  best  con- 
veying the  desired  meaning,  while  such  a  critic  as  Scho- 
penhauer, under  the  title.  The  Art  of  Literature,  practi- 
cally unfolds  its  character  as  a  Science.  Whatever  the 
specific  terms,  however,  the  essential  fact  of  the  scien- 

3 


4  LITERATURE 

tific  character  and  aim  of  Literature  is  conceded,  and 
students  are  urged  to  approach  and  investigate  it  from 
this  only  rational  point  of  view.  This  is  all  the  more 
important  in  that  the  counter  theory  finds  far  too  much 
sanction  among  the  people  at  large  and  even  in  literary 
circles  themselves.  Literature,  we  are  plausibly  told, 
is  its  own  best  reason  for  existing  ;  has  its  own  place  in- 
dependent of  all  related  provinces  ;  is  a  law  unto  itself, 
and  lives,  in  its  best  expressions,  quite  above  the  domain 
of  the  scientific.  Especially  in  poetry,  as  the  product 
of  the  imagination  and  emotions,  it  is  urged  that  author- 
ship is  literary  just  to  the  degree  in  which  it  is  unscien- 
tific or  non -scientific,  the  principle  of  poetic  license 
removing  it  from  the  restrictions  of  ordinary  mental 
procedure  and  giving  it  all  the  scope  and  freedom  it 
desires.  Such  a  current  view,  it  will  be  seen,  is  based 
on  a  total  misconception  of  the  term,  scientific,  accept- 
ing it  in  its  narrowest  purport  as  applied  to  the  study 
of  physical  phenomena  only,  rather  than  in  its  compre- 
hensive sense  as  that  which  in  any  sphere  is  founded  on 
correct  principles,  is  developed  by  orderly  procedure 
and,  as  such,  is  as  far  removed  from  the  influence  of  mere 
caprice  as  it  is  from  all  that  is  purely  technical.  Litera- 
ture, thus  approached,  is  a  scientific  investigation,  and 
we  are  now  prepared  to  discover  and  discuss  the  prin- 
ciples that  govern  it. 

1.  The  Proper  Point  or  Points  of  View  are  to  be  se- 
cured from  which  literature  may  best  be  seen  as  to  just 
what  it  is  and  what  its  relations  are  to  all  that  lies  adja- 
cent to  it  and  conditions  it.  As  an  object  in  space  to  be 
clearly  seen  and  described  by  an  observer  must  be  ex- 
amined from  the  proper  view-point,  from  what  we  call  a 


GUIDING  PRINCIPLES  5 

commanding  eminence  or  outlook,  as  a  city  or  landscape 
is  thus  seen  and  studied,  so  must  a  literature  conceived 
of  as  a  substantive  something  existing  in  the  world  of 
thought  and  life  be  similarly  examined.  The  supposi- 
tion is,  that  there  is  some  one  point  of  view,  some  van- 
tage-ground, as  we  suggestively  style  it,  from  which  the 
literary  horizon  may  best  be  scanned  and  the  safest  con- 
clusions drawn.  Moreover,  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten,  as 
indicated,  that  ere  the  observer  has  finished  his  survey, 
other  points  of  view,  even  tho  less  commanding,  may  of 
necessity  be  taken,  in  order  to  secure  an  absolutely  com- 
prehensive survey.  Thus  Eome,  as  a  city,  is  studied 
from  each  one  of  her  seven  hills.  Thus  may  a  landscape 
be  examined  from  a  variety  of  outlooks,  each  one  afford- 
ing, perchance,  some  new  revelation  of  natural  beauty. 
Indeed,  it  may  be  said,  that  the  more  complex  and  diver- 
sified the  phenomena  are,  the  more  essential  will  such  a 
variety  of  view  be  seen  to  be,  such  a  world- embracing 
department  as  literature  demanding  of  the  student  the 
utilization  of  every  agency  by  which  he  may  come  to  the 
fullest  knowledge  of  its  meaning.  If  it  be  asked,  more 
specifically,  just  what  these  View-Points  are,  as  essential 
to  Literary  Interpretation,  we  answer,  that  they  must  be 
both  External  and  Internal,  so  that  the  student  shall 
stand  both  outside  the  literature  and  inside  of  it.  Tak- 
ing his  own  observation  from  each  position,  he  will  reach 
his  desired  results  by  their  comparison  and  combination. 
The  tendency  in  literary  study,  at  present,  is  strongly 
toward  the  subjective  as  the  dominant  method,  becom- 
ing, at  times,  the  exclusive  method,  and,  as  such, 
leading  to  grave  and  ever  increasing  error.  We  may 
stand  at  the  center  of  a  city  or  a  landscape  and  secure, 
to  some  degree,  the  results  of  observation  we  are  seek- 


6  LITEBATUEE 

ing,  but,  at  best,  they  will  be  but  approximate,  limited 
and  local. 

No  literature  can  be  comprehensively  viewed  from 
within  itself  only,  a  literature's  environment,  as  Taine 
suggests,  being  an  essentially  determining  factor  in 
reaching  the  sum  total  of  its  qualities  and  influence. 
The  doctrine  of  Eelativity  is  as  applicable  in  Letters  as 
it  is  in  Philosophy.  It  is  true  that  there  exist  in  litera- 
ture, as  in  the  verse  of  Browning,  what  are  known  as 
Closet  Dramas,  not  designed  for  public  presentation  or 
adapted  to  it.  There  is,  it  is  true,  a  species  of  Private 
Literary  Interpretation,  when  the  critic  enters  into  the 
deepest  interior  of  the  literature,  and  closing  his  eyes  to 
all  external  literary  phenomena,  proceeds  to  theorize  and 
speculate  at  will.  Literary  Insight  is  essential  in  its 
place,  but  Literary  Outlook  is  equally  essential,  it  being 
invariably  true  that  when  the  examination  is  introspec- 
tive only  the  resulting  judgments  are  abnormal  and  mis- 
leading. Hence,  such  a  critic  as  Coleridge  is  safer  than 
Carlyle,  and  our  American  Lowell  safer  than  Poe. 

2.  The  True  Relation  of  the  Primary  and  the  Second- 
ary must  be  sustained,  so  that  neither  shall  be  allowed 
to  usurp  the  place  of  the  other,  and  all  conclusions  be 
thereby  impaired.  It  is  here  that  a  high  degree  of  dis- 
crimination is  needed  to  draw  safe  and  sound  distinctions 
between  things  that  may  be  confused  as  superior  and  in- 
ferior, essential  and  non-essential.  There  is  needed  in 
literature  as  in  life  itself  what  the  economist  calls,  a 
Knowledge  of  values,  of  literary  estimates,  the  ability  to 
rate  things  at  their  real  worth.  Such  a  faculty  of  selec- 
tion and  elimination  is  especially  difficult  of  exercise 
where  causes  and  qualities  are  involved  rather  than  vis- 


GTJIBING  PRINCIPLES  7 

ible  commercial  commodities  and  interests.  Some  of  the 
violations  of  this  principle  may  be  cited.  We  are  told 
that  the  Celtic  element  in  English  Letters  is  the  con- 
trolling one;  that  the  English  Drama  in  the  days  of 
Elizabeth  was  mainly  dependent  on  Classical  and  Con- 
tinental models;  that  the  indebtedness  of  Shakespeare  to 
un-English  sources  was  so  pronounced  that  it  impaired 
his  originality  as  a  dramatist;  that  such  authors  as  Carew 
and  Lovelace  and  Waller  and  Denham  rank  among  the 
poetic  leaders  of  our  literature;  that  Doctor  Johnson  is 
the  best  example  of  standard  English  Prose;  that  the 
American  poet  Whitman  belongs  to  the  first  order  of 
authors;  that  American  literature  is  too  young  and  local 
to  be  called  national.  In  all  these  instances,  the  inter- 
pretation is  defective  and  misleading  by  reason  of  the 
confounding  of  primary  and  secondary  elements  in  the 
mind  of  the  investigator.  Nothing  is  gained  by  an  order 
of  study  that  thus  reverses  the  natural  and  logical 
sequence  of  things.  One  of  the  most  pronounced  exam- 
ples of  the  violation  of  this  sequence  is  given  us  in  what 
is  currently  known  as  the  Microscopic  Method,  applied 
especially  in  poetry,  whereby  the  most  minute  details  of 
structure  are  exalted  to  the  rank  of  principles,  and  all 
distinctions  between  the  vital  and  the  incidental  are 
ignored.  In  the  light  of  such  a  procedure,  the  date  of 
the  composition  of  a  poem  or  of  its  first  appearance  is 
made  the  aU-important  point;  diction,  meter,  the  order  of 
clauses,  the  punctuation  of  the  text  and  kindred  data  are 
made  the  controlling  subject  of  study  to  the  subordina- 
tion of  the  sense  and  spirit  of  the  work  and  those  generic 
elements  that  underlie  and  vitalize  it.  Modern  European 
Criticism,  and  chiefly  in  German  Universities,  is  gravely 
at  fault  in  this  particular,  so  as  to  make  it  a  question  of 


8  LITEBATUBE 

serious  moment  whether  a  student  of  literature  does  not 
lose  more  than  he  gains  by  thus  controverting  a  pre- 
arranged order  and  unduly  emphasizing  the  irrele- 
vant. 

3.  The  Importance  of  Beginnings  in  Literature  is  to  be 
acknowledged,  what  Elton  would  call,  The  Origins  of 
Literature.  The  inquiry  here  is,  when  and  just  how  it 
first  takes  concrete,  independent  form  as  a  literature,  as 
distinct  from  those  various  immature  and  unorganized 
expressions  that  it  assumes  prior  to  its  separate,  national 
type  and  life. 

Literature  in  embryonic  form  is,  still,  literature,  ger- 
minal, genetic  and  present  in  essence,  pronounced  and 
vital  enough  to  be  determinative  of  future  qualities,  and, 
therefore,  not  to  be  ignored  by  the  interpreter  of  literary 
conditions.  Herein  is  seen  the  importance  of  what,  by 
way  of  allowable  contradiction,  may  be  called,  the  Oral 
Literature  of  a  people,  its  songs  and  proverbs  and  legends 
and  traditions,  its  unrecorded  saga,  the  Folk-lore  and 
Folk-speech  of  a  nation  or  a  race,  such  a  body  of  uncol- 
lected material  being  abundant  and  valuable,  in  propor- 
tion to  the  length  of  a  people's  primitive  life,  the  rich- 
ness of  its  early  history,  the  intrinsic  character  of  the 
stock,  and  the  closeness  of  its  relation  %o  other  peoples 
farther  advanced  in  civilization  and  culture.  The  old 
Celtic  Literature  of  Britain  existing  long  before  the 
island  was  invaded  by  Continental  tribes  is  rich  in  these 
pre-historic  data.  The  Scandinavian  countries  as  a  class 
are  notable  for  such  a  wealth  of  literary  material  lying 
on  the  surface  of  the  people's  life,  the  suggestive  sagas 
of  the  North  out  of  which  such  epics  as  Beowulf  were 
constructed.      Those  Medieval  epics  of  which  Bayard 


GUIDING  PRINCIPLES  9 

Taylor  writes  found  their  occasion  and  subject-matter  in 
sucli  tales  and  traditions  of  the  primitive  Gothic  nations, 
the  ''lost  lays,"  of  the  old  Teutonic  divinities,  legends 
full  of  interest  to  English  students  in  that  they  have  con- 
tributed of  their  romantic  stores  to  such  works  as  Tenny- 
son's ''Idylls  of  the  King,"  Arnold's  "Tristram  and 
Iseult,"  Morris'  "  Lovers  of  Gudrun, "  and  Longfellow's 
"Golden  Legend."  Of  this  semi-historical  material, 
France  and  Switzerland  and  the  Orient  have  their  full 
share,  while  Old  English  Literature  prior  to  the  Con- 
quest and  on  to  the  days  of  Chaucer  was  as  much  myth- 
ical as  it  was  historical,  and  reads,  even  yet,  like  a 
romance.  The  so-called  histories  of  William  of  Malmes- 
bury  and  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  are  histories  but  in 
name.  Chaucer's  "Eomande  La  Rose  "  and  "Legend 
of  Good  Women"  and  More's  "Utopia"  carry  us 
directly  back  to  the  region  of  romance,  while  "The 
Travels ' '  of  Sir  John  Maude ville  are  a  fitting  illustra- 
tion of  the  legendary  lore  of  the  Orient.  Even  The 
"  Faerie  Queene "  of  Spencer  and  The  "Arcadia"  of 
Sidney  continue  this  romantic  narrative  down  to  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  the  opening  of  Mod- 
ern English,  while,  on  through  the  developing  literature, 
it  appears  and  reappears  on  to  the  days  of  Moore  in  the 
mystic  pages  of  "Lalla  Eookh,"  in  which  the  Orient  is 
again  in  view  and  the  East  and  West  unite.  Hence,  the 
necessity  of  tracing  literature  to  its  crudest  origins;  of 
studying  the  true  relations  of  the  realistic  to  the  romantic; 
of  the  nineteenth  century  of  Victoria  to  the  ninth  cen- 
tury of  Alfred,  if  so  be  the  law  of  historic  sequence  may 
be  observed. 

4.  The  Use  of  Genuine  Contrasts  in  Literature.     One 


10  LITER  ATUBE 

of  these  contrasts  is  expressed  iu  the  terms  Eealism  and 
Romanticism,  and  we  are  bound  by  literary  law  to  accept 
and  apply  it.  Literature,  we  are  aware,  expresses  often, 
prevailingly  the  one  or  the  other  of  these  tendencies  and 
ideals.  Especially  may  any  one  separate  literature,  as 
the  English  or  French,  be  thus  approached  and  studied, 
it  being  more  or  less  evident  that  the  English  is  realistic 
and  the  French,  romantic,  as  determined  by  their  re- 
spective antecedents  and  national  character.  Thus,  Ro- 
manticism is  Oriental  or  Asiatic,  and  Eealism  is  Occiden- 
tal; Greek  Literature  is  romantic,  and  Roman,  realistic; 
while  modern  Russian  Letters  must  now  be  mainly 
viewed  as  an  expression  of  the  romantic  type.  So,  we 
are  to  examine  literature  as  an  embodiment  of  Thought 
or  as  an  expression  of  Structure,  and  the  Contrast  is  that 
of  Subject-Matter  and  Style.  Periods  are  studied  and 
authors  are  classified  on  this  principle.  Here  again, 
German  Letters  are  substantial,  developed  on  the  intel- 
lectual side,  while  Gallic  Literature  is  structural  and 
ornate,  developed  on  the  esthetic  side,  it  being  conceded 
that  Literature  as  a  whole  may  be  viewed  under  the  one 
or  the  other  of  these  aspects. 

An  equally  evident  contrast  is  given  us  in  De  Quincey's 
favorite  distinction — the  Literature  of  Knowledge  and 
the  Literature  of  Power.  On  this  conception,  the  stu- 
dent is  urged  to  examine  literature  as  a  storehouse  of 
facts,  on  its  historical  side,  or  as  a  collection  of  princi- 
ples, on  its  Philosophical  side,  the  line  of  division  being 
definitely  drawn.  So,  is  there  a  pronounced  contrast 
between  Representative  and  Average  Authorship,  and 
we  are  expected,  in  our  studies,  to  recognize  the  differ- 
ence between  the  literature  of  Goethe,  Racine  and 
Shakespeare,  and  that  of  Herder,  Fontenelle  and  Gold- 


GUIDING  FEINCIPLE8  11 

smith.    "We  are,  in  a  word,  to  view  literary  development 
as  an  expression  of  genius,  or  of  talent  only. 

Such  contrasts  there  are  and  they  must  be  accepted 
and  examined,  the  word  of  caution  to  the  literary  inter- 
preter being,  that,  after  all,  they  exist  but  in  a  modified 
form  and  measure,  often  as  a  matter  of  convenience  and 
educational  method  rather  than  as  indispensable  factors 
or  features  of  literature  itself.  It  is  not  so  much  Eeal- 
ism  or  Eomanticism,  Content  or  Structure,  Knowledge 
or  Power  but  each  in  turn  and  in  unison  by  which  a  re- 
sultant is  reached  that  will  meet  the  test  of  truth.  The 
literary  student  is  not  so  much  a  student  of  antitheses, 
making  it  his  main  object  to  exalt  the  differences  among 
schools  and  types  and  movements  and  authors,  as  he  is  a 
student  of  relations  and  resemblances  and  elements  of 
coordination,  if  so  be  that  literature,  the  world  over,  may 
be  presented  as  a  unified  world-product,  developed,  in  all 
great  nations,  on  the  same  great  lines  and  contemplating 
the  same  great  ends.  Hence,  the  need  of  mental  balance 
and  catholicity  in  criticism,  so  that  all  lines  of  converg- 
ence may  be  detected,  all  focal  forces  given  due  place  and 
influence,  and  what  Bacon  calls,  the  '' intuition  of  unity," 
become  the  end  of  humane  letters  as  well  as  of  philosophy. 

5.  The  candid  recognition  of  the  Unknown  Quantity 
in  Literature  is  another  Guiding  Principle.  In  litera- 
ture, as  in  mathematics,  most  of  the  factors  needed  in 
the  solution  of  questions  are  at  hand  or  accessible.  In 
both  departments,  however,  some  of  these  factors  are 
unknown  and  unknowable.  This  is  especially  true  in 
Letters.  Literature,  in  the  main,  is  an  open  field  for 
free  investigation  or,  to  change  the  figure,  an  open  mine 
for  free  exploration,  and  most  of  the  treasures  from  field 


12  LITEBATUBE 

or  mine  may  be  discovered  and  gathered  by  ordinary 
observation  and  industry.  As  a  department  of  study, 
Literature  can  not  be  said  to  be  intricate  and  involved, 
defying  analysis  and  synthesis,  obstructing,  at  frequent 
intervals,  the  advance  of  the  student,  as  if  it  were  akin 
to  astronomical  physics  or  quaternions  or  the  chemical 
separation  of  elements.  This  is  not  to  say,  however, 
that  there  is  not  a  region  of  complexity  within  its  enclo- 
sure taxing  the  utmost  acumen  of  the  inquirer,  defying, 
at  times,  his  most  sedulous  efforts  to  compass  and  com- 
prehend it,  in  any  satisfactory  manner.  If  it  be  asked, 
more  definitely,  what  these  indeterminate  elements  or 
factors  are,  it  may  be  answered  that,  first  of  all.  Com- 
plexity itself  is  difiicult  of  interpretation.  As  we 
approach,  with  such  a  scholar  as  Possnett,  the  examina- 
tion of  universal  literature,  what  a  vast  expanse  and 
profound  we  find — how  diversified  in  its  features  and 
elements,  how  characterized  by  the  play  of  primary  and 
secondary  forces,  of  direct  and  indirect  causes  !  "What 
a  net- work  of  interacting  agencies  is  here  !  For  the 
time  being,  how  both  reason  and  imagination  are  appalled 
at  the  outlook  !  Then  there  is,  in  literature,  an  element 
of  Secrecy  or  Mystery,  that  is  often  baffling.  There  are 
provinces  that  forbid  an  entrance,  problems  that  will 
give  us  no  clue  to  their  unfolding,  so  that  we  probe  and 
probe  in  vain.  What  is  literature,  its  specific  province 
and  quality  ;  just  when  is  the  date  and  where  is  the 
IDlace  of  its  origin  ;  just  how  are  certain  of  its  develop- 
ments evolved  ;  to  what  extent  precisely  is  it  an  index 
of  a  people's  character  and  life,  and  what  are  its  under- 
lying laws — these  and  questions  such  as  these  take  us  at 
once,  into  the  region  of  the  obscure,  and  the  best  results 
are  problematical. 


GUIDING  FBINGIPLm  13 

Still  again,  explain  it  as  we  may,  there  is  in  literature, 
as  in  language,  the  appearance  of  Caprice,  the  conspicu- 
ous absence,  for  the  time,  of  anything  like  law  or  method 
or  principle.  Irregularity  is  the  only  thing  visible.  All 
precedents  on  which  we  have  depended  are  nullified  ;  all 
literary  history  is  ignored;  and  we  sit  in  the  presence  of 
a  panorama  that  is  moving  before  us,  apparently  with- 
out any  causal  agency  behind  it, — autonomous  and 
unique.  Hence,  we  have  genius,  in  its  highest  form,  in 
a  dark  and  unpromising  age,  as  we  have  the  reign  of 
literary  mediocrity  in  an  era  of  general  excellence.  "We 
have  not  yet  fally  accounted  for  the  composition  of 
^'Caedmon"  and  "Beowulf"  in  the  seventh  century,  or 
of  "Paradise  Lost"  in  the  sensuous  days  of  the  seven- 
teenth, nor  for  the  presence  of  Shakespeare  in  the  six- 
teenth, nor  for  the  conspicuous  lack  of  epic  and  dramatic 
ability  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth,  nor  for  the  high 
literary  achievements  of  the  Celtic  mind,  nor  for  the  low 
estate  of  English  Poetry,  since  the  death  of  Browning 
and  Tennyson.  In  fine,  the  principle  of  exceptions  is 
applicable  in  literature  as  elsewhere  and  equally  difficult 
of  exposition.  Even  where  something  like  definite  re- 
sults are  reached,  the  student  is  wisest  who  regards  them 
as,  at  best,  approximate,  preparing  the  way  for  fuller 
outcome  as  the  literature  develops  and  unknown  facts 
are  brought  to  light.  Hence,  the  evil  of  dogmatism  in 
literature,  of  literary  arrogance  and  bold  assertion  on  the 
part  of  the  critic,  or  of  any  other  spirit  than  that  of  mod- 
esty in  the  presence  of  the  mysterious.  Literature  is, 
indeed,  a  science,  but  not  necessarily  final  in  all  its  is- 
sues; a  science,  as  all  others,  partly  tentative,  forced,  at 
times,  to  discard  all  accepted  data  and  to  accept  that 
which  has  hitherto  been  ignored.     Literary  Interpreta- 


14  LITERATURE 


I 


tion,  just  because  it  is  scientific,  freely  admits  the  exist- 
ence of  tlie  unknown,  even  while  it  is  earnestly  seeking 
to  reduce  its  area. 

6.  An  Unbiassed  Mind  is  an  essential  in  literary  in- 
quiry,— the  absence  of  Pre-judgments.  Questions,  as 
they  arise,  are  to  be  examined  on  their  merits.  Nor  does 
this,  in  the  least,  contravene  the  desirability  of  inde- 
pendence of  judgment  in  the  examination  of  literary 
problems.  Without  such  independence,  literary  criti- 
cism is  robbed  of  its  most  essential  element  and  reduced 
to  a  level  on  which  no  right-minded  student  should  be 
asked  to  stand.  The  contention  is  simply  this — that  in- 
dependence shall  not  degenerate  into  bigotry ;  that  the 
wisest  of  men  is  subject  to  the  necessary  limitations  of 
human  knowledge  ;  that  there  is  such  a  power  as  Public 
Opinion  in  the  world  of  letters. 

Some  of  the  most  harmful  of  these  Prejudices  may  be 
noted.  One  of  them  is  found  in  an  Unduly  Exalted 
Estimate  of  one's  own  literature  as  compared  with  that 
of  less  favored  peoples.  Attention  has  been  called  to  the 
necessity  of  assuming,  at  the  outset,  the  right  Point  or 
Points  of  View,  such  Points  of  Observation  being  out- 
^de  the  literature  as  well  as  within  it.  The  Pre- Judg- 
ment now  before  us  violates,  at  once,  this  initial  prin- 
ciple of  procedure,  confines  the  observer  to  the  area  of 
his  own  vernacular,  and  thus  prevents  him  from  making 
wide  and  truthful  generalizations.  His  assumption,  that 
his  own  literature  is  central  and  commanding,  is  funda- 
mentally wrong,  and  confirms  him,  at  the  outset,  in  a 
state  of  mind  under  the  influence  of  which  neither  his 
own  literature  nor  literature  in  general  can  be  impartially 
examined.     Nor  is  there  any  proof  of  disloyalty  in  this 


GUIDING  PBINCIPLE8  15 

refusal  to  open  the  discussion  after  this  biassed  manner. 
What  is  demanded,  as  fair  and  just,  is,  that  literature 
shall  be  viewed  in  its  entirety  and  separate  factors  as  a 
something  standing  on  its  own  merits  and  so  to  be  exam- 
ined apart  from  all  prepossession.  To  the  student  in- 
terested, his  own  literature  may  be  without  a  peer  or  an 
approximate  rival.  On  patriotic  and  logical  grounds, 
he  may  be  convinced  of  its  decided  superiority.  This  is 
not  to  say,  however,  that  when  he  comes  to  the  work  of 
literary  interpretation  he  has  the  undoubted  right  to 
press  this  preference  and  conviction  and  reason  out 
therefrom  as  a  point  of  departure  in  argument.  He 
must,  on  the  contrary,  approach  the  subject  as  a  new 
one,  while  there  is  a  sense  in  which,  in  case  of  doubt,  he 
is  to  give  the  benefit  of  the  doubt  to  other  literatures 
than  his  own.  Courtesy,  modesty  and  justice  alike  re- 
quire it. 

Another  Pre-judgment  may  arise  in  the  form  of  In- 
herited or  Derived  Opinion.  There  are  what  may  be 
called.  Traditional  Views  of  Literature  in  general  or  of 
this  or  that  literature,  which  have  been  accepted  without 
question  or  have  been  the  product  of  education  and 
environment.  However  secured,  they  have  our  unqual- 
ified endorsement  and  we  allow  no  counter-opinion 
seriously  to  conflict  with  them.  Just  as  a  man's  polit- 
ical and  economic  opinions  may  be  a  part  of  his  dowry 
as  much  as  his  patrimony  is,  or  be  the  result  of  special 
training  and  environment  and  accepted  by  him  as  final, 
so  a  man' s  literary  opinions  may  be  purely  of  the  nature 
of  a  patrimony  or  the  product  of  mere  imitation,  and  so 
fixed  in  his  beliefs  that  he  always  opens  every  literary 
discussion  with  the  pre-supposition  of  their  validity. 
Not  inclined  to  learn  new  facts,  he  is  unwilling  to  un- 


16  LITEBATTJBE 

learn  old  ones,  and  accepts  conclusions  only  to  the  degree 
in  which  they  may  be  adjusted  to  what  he  has  been 
taught  to  believe  is  true.  This  is  Inherited  Opinion. 
Certainly  it  is  not  in  any  sense  original,  or  even  acquired 
by  personal  observation  and  study.  Thus  did  Gibbon 
write  his  '^ Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Eoman  Empire," 
with  a  presupposition  of  the  invalidity  of  Christianity. 
Thus  did  Buckle  write  the  "History  of  Civilization," 
accepting  the  needlessness  of  Christianity  as  a  vital  fac- 
tor in  human  progress.  Thus  did  Taine  enter  upon  the 
interpretation  of  English  Literature  so  as  to  produce  a 
history  as  brilliant  as  it  is  often  misleading.  It  is  here 
that  Hume  and,  to  some  extent,  Fronde  fails  as  an  Eng- 
lish historian;  that  the  Edinburgh  Eeviewers,  at  the 
opening  of  the  last  century,  overreached  themselves  in 
their  malicious  criticism  of  contemporary  British  Letters. 
Herein  lies  the  special  weakness  of  Matthew  Arnold  as  a 
critic  as,  also,  of  Poe.  Here  Voltaire  erred,  in  his  study 
of  Shakespeare;  and  Macaulay,  in  his  estimate  of  the 
Puritans;  and  Carlyle,  in  his  strictures  on  American 
institutions.  An  interpreter,  as  the  word  signifies,  is  a 
mediator.  He  is  to  view  all  sides,  hear  all  claims,  and 
reach  conclusions  which  are  demanded  by  the  facts  and 
conditions. 

7.  Literary  Interpretation  should  be  Constructive 
and  Positive,  ever  seeking  definite  results  whereby  the 
interests  of  literature  may  best  be  subserved  and  ever 
higher  vantage-ground  be  secured  for  those  who  succeed. 
There  is  such  a  thing  as  destructive  and  negative  expo- 
sition, having,  apparantly,  no  other  purpose  than  to 
undermine  existing  beliefs  and  prove  by  labored  argu- 
ment that  this  or  that  ought  not  to  be.     It  is  an  order  of 


GUIDING  PRINCIPLES  17 

investigation  that  rejoices  in  the  detection  of  error;  ex- 
poses to  conspicuous  view  the  worst  side  of  literary  life 
and  work;  magnifies  the  forces  unfriendly  to  literature, 
and  is  ever  prophesying  the  speedy  approach  of  literary 
decadence.  These  are  the  Pessimists  of  literature,  and, 
as  such,  have  no  valid  place  in  literary  circles.  Literary 
Interpretation  is  the  search  for  the  best  things  in  litera- 
ture, a  specifically  organizing  and  upbuilding  function, 
aiming  to  discuss  and  emphasize  that  which  makes  litera- 
ture what  it  is  in  the  general  economy  of  things;  a  posi- 
tive, healthful  and  recompensing  study,  "a  criticism  of 
life ' '  in  its  highest  capabilities  and  ideals. 

8.  We  note,  as  a  final  law  of  Literary  Exposition,  the 
aim  to  reach  and  express  The  Inner  Spirit  of  Literature 
as  quite  distinct  from  anything  external  and  conven- 
tional. The  whole  truth  is  not  stated  when  we  say,  that 
Literature  is  a  something  expressed  in  written  form ; 
that  a  mere  collection  of  books  in  a  library  is  literature; 
or  that  it  is  this  or  that  offered  to  the  reader  for  his  in- 
struction and  pleasure.  Literature  is  more  than  printed 
matter,  more  by  far  than  the  books  that  contain  it.  It 
is,  as  Carlyle  states  it,  '■ '  the  thought  of  thinking  souls ' ' ; 
it  is  the  expression  of  mind  and  heart  and  will  and  con- 
science and  taste  ;  of  the  sum  total  of  a  man' s  being ; 
the  embodiment  in  language  of  the  life  of  the  world  ;  an 
aspiration  and  an  inspiration  ;  the  last  product  of  the 
centuries  ;  the  approximate  realization  of  the  highest 
human  ideals.  Above  all,  it  is  a  living  thing,  instinct 
with  the  presence  of  knowledge  and  power  ;  a  vital  and 
vitalizing  product ;  the  manifestation  of  human  experi- 
ence in  its  breadth  and  depth  ;  a  life-sized  portraiture 
of  the  loves  and  hates,  the  joys  and  sorrows,  the  ambi- 


18  LITEBATUBE 

tions  and  actions  of  men.  We  call  it,  The  Spirit  of 
Literature ;  its  animus,  its  personality,  its  inspiring 
principle,  its  genius — all  that  gives  validity  and  value 
to  its  external  forms.  Thus,  the  Greek  and  Eoman  and 
German  and  English  Literatures  have  their  respective 
personalities,  while  literature  as  a  whole  may  be  said  to 
have  its  own  governing  instincts  and  ideals.  What  is 
now  known  as  The  World's  Best  Literature,  best  ex- 
presses this  innermost  literary  spirit  which  through  the 
progress  of  the  centuries,  since  the  dawn  of  letters,  has 
been  gathering  strength  and  charm.  To  find  and  reveal 
this  spirit  to  men  so  that  they  may  fully  see  and  receive 
it  is  the  primal  and  final  function  of  the  literary  inter- 
preter. Without  it,  all  else  is  found  in  vain,  and  with 
it  all  else  is  practically  present.  Here,  as  nowhere  else, 
all  schools  and  theories  of  literary  exposition  may  be 
successfully  tested  in  that  they  succeed  or  fail  in  their 
search  for  that  spirit  of  life  which  lies  at  the  basis  of 
literary  art  and  makes  it  what  it  is  of  worth  to  men.  '  '■  All 
the  influences  of  the  century,"  writes  a  recent  critic, 
"have  passed  into  the  being  of  poets."  All  these  influ- 
ences, we  may  add,  have  passed  into  the  province  of 
letters,  in  one  form  or  another,  and  these  influences  in 
their  diversity  are  to  be  studied. 

Hence,  the  difficulties  and  the  recompenses  of  such  a 
study,  ever  baffling  the  diligent  inquirer  and  ever  incit- 
ing him  to  renewed  endeavor.  It  is  the  Quest  of  the 
Holy  Grail  applied  to  letters,  full  of  high  inducement 
and  promise,  and  making  it  impossible  for  the  seeker 
ever  to  cease  his  quest,  as  long  as  new  discoveries  of 
truth  yet  remain. 

Such  are  some  of  the  Guiding  Laws  and  Principles  of 
Literary  Interpretation;  a  procedure  based,  throughout. 


GUIDING   PRINCIPLES  19 

on  a  stable,  scientific  method,  and,  yet,  afifording  to  the 
candid  and  patient  student  all  the  area  that  a  free  human 
spirit  could  desire. 

It  is  of  literature  that  Mr.  Lowell  is  speaking  when  he 
says — '^  I  venture  to  claim  for  it  an  influence  more  desir- 
able and  more  widely  operative  than  that  exerted  by  any 
other  form  in  which  human  genius  has  found  expression. ' ' 


CHAPTER  TWO 
A  DEFINITION  OF  LITERATURE 

Clear  and  concise  conceptions  are  rare,  and  especially 
so  in  those  departments  of  thought  that  are  the  most  im- 
portant, and  which,  as  such,  suffer  the  most  from  any 
degree  of  vagueness. 

Definition,  from  its  very  etymology,  means,  to  set  the 
limits  of  the  truth  or  topic  defined — to  separate  it,  in  its 
complexity,  from  anything  similar  to  it  with  which  it 
might  be  confounded.  The  large  variety  of  conception 
possible  in  any  high  domain  of  mental  work,  and  the 
infrequency  with  which  we  select  any  one  of  these  con- 
ceptions as  manifestly  superior  to  all  others,  will  reveal, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  many-sidedness  of  such  topics,  and, 
also,  the  serious  difiiculty  involved  in  the  attempt  to 
correctly  bound  or  define  them.  In  no  province  of  intel- 
lectual work  is  this  effort  more  baffling  than  in  Litera- 
ture— a  province  including  so  much  in  itself,  and  touch- 
ing, as  it  does,  on  all  sides,  and  at  every  point,  some 
kindred  province  of  study.  In  common  with  such 
generic  and  comprehensive  terms  as  Philosophy,  Science 
and  Art,  the  best  that  can  be  done  is,  to  approximate  as 
closely  as  possible  to  an  ideal  conception  of  the  subject 
— all  inclusive  and  yet  all  exclusive,  embracing  what  the 
old  writers  called,  its  substance  and  its  accidents. 

One  of  the  best  methods  of  securing  this  result  is,  first 
of  all,  to  survey  The  History  of  Opinion  on  this  subject 
— to  select  and  emphasize,  from  the  numerous  concep- 

20 


A   DEFINITION  21 

tions  or  definitions,  those  that  carry  with  them  the  most 
weight  and  bring  us  the  nearest  to  the  end  we  are 
seeking. 

If  asked,  at  the  outset,  why  the  term  Literature  should 
be  so  capable  of  diverse  interpretation,  and  why  so 
obscure,  Mr.  Possnett  suggests  four  distinct  causes,  as 
follows: 

(a)  The  Source  from  which  it  has  reached  us. 

(&)  The  Unhistorical  Ideas  about  it,  by  learned  and 
unlearned. 

(c)  The  Subtle  Changes  in  the  Means  of  Literary 
Workmanship. 

{d)  The  Subtle  Changes  in  the  Ends  of  Literary  Work- 
manship. 

Of  these,  we  may  note  that  the  third  and  fourth  are 
especially  potent,  and  will  occasion,  in  every  succeeding 
age,  wide  divergence  of  view  among  critics  and  scholars. 
Some  of  these  Historical  Opinions  may  be  cited. 

According  to  Worcester,  we  mean  by  literature,  '^  The 
results  of  learning,  knowledge  and  imagination,  pre- 
served in  writing,"  in  which  definition  the  words, 
imagination  and  writing,  are  the  emphatic  ones. 

Mr.  Hallam,  the  historian  of  literature,  tersely  speaks 
of  it  as,  "Knowledge  imparted  through  books,"  a  defi- 
nition singularly  defective,  as  failing  to  differentiate  the 
knowledge  called  literary  from  any  other  form  of  knowl- 
edge. It  is,  also,  singularly  redundant,  as  including  in 
literature  all  kinds  of  knowledge  imparted  through 
books. 

According  to  Brooke,  "By  Literature,  we  mean  the 
written  thoughts  and  feelings  of  intelligent  men  and 
women,  arranged  in  a  way  which  will  giv^e  pleasure  to 
the  reader,"  in  which  language  he  means  to  emphasize 


22  LITEBATUBE 

the  term  pleasure,  or  esthetic  enjoy ment,  as  marking  the 
prime  purpose  of  the  author.  It  is  precisely  this  that 
he  means  when  he  adds,  ' '  Prose  is  not  literature  unless 
it  have  style  and  character,  and  be  written  with  curious 
care."  By  ''character,"  he  means  artistic  character, 
and  by  ' '  curious  care, ' '  that  painstaking  devotion  to 
technique  which  characterized  such  a  prose  writer  as 
Matthew  Arnold  and  such  a  poet  as  Keats. 

When  Jebb  tells  us  that  '' Literature  implies  fixed 
form,"  he  insists  not  only  that  it  must  be  written  as  dis- 
tinct from  being  oral,  but  that  it  must  have  a  well- 
developed  style  or  esthetic  quality — must  be,  as  we  say, 
in  good  form. 

'^ Literature,"  says  Vinet,  the  French  critic,  '' em- 
braces all  those  writings  in  which  man  reveals  himself 
synthetically  to  man" — a  statement  in  which  the  mean- 
ing turns  on  the  critic's  use  of  the  word,  synthetic. 
By  it,  Vinet  probably  meant  that,  as  synthesis,  in  logic, 
embraces  the  sum  total  of  a  proposition  in  compact  and 
practicable  form,  so  literature  expresses  the  sum  total  of 
human  knowledge  in  condensed  and  adjustable  form.  It 
is  but  another  way  of  saying  that  literature  is  embodied 
thought  or  truth,  expressed  in  a  manner  germane  to  the 
nature  of  man. 

Literature,  writes  another  French  author  (Gauckler), 
is  '•''Hart  de  la  Parole,  the  art  of  the  word,  expressing 
itself  as — La  Foesie,  La  Prose  ecrite,  and  L^art  oratoire.^^ 

So  cultured  a  critic  as  Matthew  Arnold  writes  :  '^  Lit- 
erature is  a  large  word.  It  may  mean  everything  writ- 
ten with  letters  or  printed  in  a  book,  as  Euclid's  Ele- 
ments, or  Newton's  Principia,"  embracing,  as  Cicero 
argued,  all  learning.  Professor  Huxley  makes  it  synony- 
mous with  Belles- Lettres.     Saunders,  in  his  Preface  to 


A   DEFINITION  23 

Schopenhauer's  '^Art  of  Literature,"  writes:  '^ Litera- 
ture can  be  taken  to  mean  a  process  as  well  as  a  result  of 
mental  activity.  It  is  an  Art.  .  .  .  The  problem  of 
this  art  is  the  discovery  of  those  qualities  of  style  and 
treatment  which  entitle  any  work  to  be  called  good  lit- 
erature." 

Among  additional  definitions  that  might  be  cited, 
there  are  two  of  special  interest.  "Literature,"  writes 
Possnett,  ' '  consists  of  works  which,  whether  in  prose  or 
verse,  are  the  handicraft  of  imagination  rather  than  re- 
flection ;  aim  at  the  pleasure  of  the  greatest  possible 
number  of  the  nation  rather  than  at  instruction  and 
practical  effects,  and  appeal  to  general  as  against  spe- 
cialized knowledge. 

So  Bascom,  of  our  own  country — "The  Literature  of 
a  nation  is  the  embodiment  of  that  which  is  most  artistic 
and  complete  in  its  intellectual  and  literary  life.  No 
work  is  a  part  of  national  literature  until  it  is  possessed 
of  such  merit  of  execution  as  to  give  it  permanent  value. 
Thought  alone  can  not  save  a  work  to  literature.  It  is 
some  completeness,  symmetry,  excellence  of  form  that 
gives  identity  and  ownership  to  a  product.  In  propor- 
tion as  the  excellence  of  the  form  transcends  the  value  of 
the  matter  does  the  literary  work  gain  perpetuity.  Lit- 
erature is  essentially  of  an  artistic  character. ' ' 

With  regard  to  these  definitions  as  thus  stated,  one  or 
two  suggestions  may  be  offered. 

1.  Most  of  them  illustrate  the  subject — Literature — 
rather  than  defining  it.  They  are  descriptions  rather 
than  definitions,  dealing  with  facts  or  truths  about  Lit- 
erature, rather  than  with  Literature  itself  in  its  essential 
nature  and  spirit. 


24  LITEBATUBE 

2.  Further,  it  may  be  noted,  that,  in  the  main,  they 
cover  but  a  portion  of  the  ground  that  is  to  be  included 
in  a  lull  definition  ;  express  but  partial  truth,  and  thus 
fail  to  satisfy  the  student  in  his  desire  to  reach  a  com- 
plete idea  and  survey  of  the  subject.  WTien,  as  Pro- 
fessor Jebb  tells  us,  Literature  implies  ''fixed  form," 
this  is  true  as  far  as  it  goes.  Such  so-called  definitions 
lack  one  of  the  essential  features  of  definition — viz., 
completeness  or  comprehensiveness. 

3.  A  notable  additional  feature  and  fault  of  these  defi- 
nitions is  found  in  the  fact,  that,  as  a  rule,  they  state  and 
defend  extreme  positions.  As  they  are  expressed,  they 
seem  to  inculcate  the  idea  that  Literature  either  is  coin- 
cident with  all  learning,  or  that  it  is  reducible  to  the 
mere  art  of  pleasing,  and  brings  into  play  only  the  artis- 
tic or  executive  faculty  in  the  line  of  verbal  finish. 

As  an  approximately  safe  and  satisfactory  definition, 
"we  submit  the  following:  Literature  is  the  Written  Ex- 
pression of  Thought,  through  the  Imagination,  Feelings 
and  Taste,  in  such  an  untechnical  form  as  to  make  it  in- 
telligible and  interesting  to  the  general  mind.  English 
Literature,  consequently,  is  such  an  expression  of  Eng- 
lish thought  to  the  general  English  mind. 

In  this  definition  certain  fundamental  facts  are  in- 
cluded. 

1.  That  Literature  involves,  in  its  very  idea,  author- 
ship in  written  form — the  Litterae  of  the  study.  The 
Literateur  is  precisely  what  Emerson  would  call,  "the 
Writer."  Oratory  or  Oral  Discourse,  however  ex- 
cellent or  adapted  to  its  ends,  is  not  Literature,  and 
can  not  become  such  until  it  is  reduced  to  manuscript 


A   DEFINITION  25 

form.  The  orations  of  Cicero  and  of  Burke  did  not  enter 
into  Latin  and  English  Letters  until  presented  in  ' '  fixed 
form. ' '  Those  that  have  not  been  so  embodied  finished 
their  function  when  delivered,  and  share  the  common 
fate  of  all  that  is  transient.  It  is  thus  that  the  French 
critic  already  quoted,  (Gauckler),  is  wrong  when  he 
speaks  of  Literature  as  ^^Uartde  la  FaroW''  including 
^' Uart  oratoire^^  as  well  as  '^LaFrose  ecrlfe.''^  What- 
ever may  be  the  mutual  relations  of  the  Orator  and  the 
Writer,  the  voice  and  the  pen,  the  difference  between 
them  is  so  marked  as  to  make  them  mutually  exclusive 
when  Literature  is  to  be  sharply  defined. 

2.  Further,  Literature,  in  its  very  nature  and  ulti- 
mate ideal,  is  Untechnical.  It  has  little  to  do  with 
specialties,  or  with  what  Possnett  calls,  '  *  specialized 
knowledge."  The  truths  that  it  embodies  and  expresses 
must  be  of  a  more  general  and  comprehensive  tyi^e  ;  if 
we  may  so  state  it,  more  human  and  catholic,  and,  as 
such,  the  most  likely  to  find  their  way,  awaken  a  com- 
mon response,  and  subserve  their  specific  purpose.  In 
this  sense,  History,  when  it  takes  the  form  of  Annals,  or 
Chronicles,  or  Compends,  or  Manuals  of  Instruction,  is 
not  Literature,  as  Biography  is  not,  when  presented  only 
as  Memoirs,  or  as  collections  of  data  as  to  the  life  in  ques- 
tion. Text-books,  as  we  understand  that  term,  are  not 
properly  classified  among  literary  books.  Analysis, 
Statistics,  Dates,  and  Formulae  are  not  Literature.  They 
are  too  specialized  in  form  and  aim  to  be  such. 

So,  in  the  whole  sphere  of  the  Scientific,  as  we  shall 
see,  there  is  a  place  for  Literature,  but  science,  as  such, 
in  its  technical  and  abstract  character,  physical,  mental 
or  moral,  is  not  Literature,  but  takes  its  place  within  a 


26  LITEBATUBE 

separate  and  well-defined  area.  When  Goethe  wrote  his 
''Faust,"  he  wrote  as  an  author  within  literary  lines  ; 
when  he  wrote  on  "Optics,"  he  wrote  as  a  Scientist  and 
for  other  ends  than  literary  ends.  Dr.  Johnson' s  ' '  Eam- 
bler  "  is  literary  ;  his  "Dictionary  of  the  English  Lan- 
guage," or  Carlyle's  "  Translation  of  Legeudre's  Geom- 
etry," is  not.  It  is  thus  that  Literature  is  addressed  to 
the  General  Mind — to  the  people  as  such,  to  the  great 
middle  classes  of  society  as  distinct  from  either  extreme. 
In  this  respect.  Literature  may  be  said  to  be  popular  in 
its  purpose  as  in  its  form,  and  is  so  in  the  one  because  so 
in  the  other.  It  seeks  to  interpret  truth  to  the  common 
understanding  ;  to  deal  with  generic  and  comprehensive 
ideas  ;  to  avoid  the  narrow,  pedantic  and  professional. 

When  Lord  Bacon  wrote  his  ' '  Essays ' '  and  ' '  History 
of  Henry  YII. , "  he  wrote  on  literary  ground  and  for  the 
general  English  mind  ;  when  he  wrote  his  ' '  JsTovum  Or- 
ganum,"  he  wrote  for  English  scholars  and  for  the  schools. 
It  is  here  an  open  question  whether  such  a  book  as 
Hooker's  "Ecclesiastical  Polity"  or  such  pamphlets  as 
Milton's  on  "Divorce"  and  the  "  Church  "  are  not  ex- 
cluded, on  this  principle,  from  that  category  which  in- 
cludes the  "  Paradise  Lost "  and  "Comus." 

Edmund  Burke's  "Philosophical  Inquiry  into  the 
Origin  of  our  Ideas  of  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful"  is 
addressed  to  one  section  of  the  English  Public,  and  to 
this  extent  is  not  literary,  as  his  Speech  on  ' '  Hastings' 
Impeachment ' '  is.  One  need  not  be  illiterate  to  be  un- 
literary. 

3.  Still  further.  Literature  is  an  expression  of  Thought. 
Nor  is  it  meant  by  this  that  the  man  of  letters  is  the  man 
of  learning  in  any  scholastic  and  formal  sense.     The  Ian- 


A  DEFINITION  27 

guage  used  by  Pater,  that  '^the  literary  artist  is  of  neces- 
sity a  scholar,"  might  be  modified  to  read,  that  he  is  of 
necessity  a  thinker.  Hence,  the  error  of  statement  made 
by  Bascom  when  he  writes — ''  In  proportion  as  the  ex- 
cellence of  the  form  transcends  the  value  of  the  matter 
does  the  literary  work  gain  perpetuity."  This  would  be 
to  place  a  premium  on  the  absence  of  thought  in  letters 
as,  also,  to  hold  the  unphilosophical  view,  that  literature 
as  an  art  could  have  any  true  basis  or  safe  expression 
apart  from  its  intellectual  character.  When  we  say, 
therefore,  that  Literature  is  the  expression  of  thought, 
each  extreme  is  avoided — that  of  making  literature  un- 
duly scholastic  and  abstruse,  and  that  of  making  it  unduly 
artistic  and  ornamental. 

What  is  insisted  on  is  this — that  Literature  shall  be, 
in  the  best  meaning,  sensible;  that  it  shall  be  the  expres- 
sion of  mind  to  mind  ;  and  that  it  thus  shall  be  saved  from 
becoming  the  mere  record  of  words  for  the  words'  sake, 
or  from  subserving  any  other  ends  than  those  that  are 
high  and  worthy.  Literature  may  have,  and  does  have, 
pleasure  as  one  of  its  ends,  and,  yet,  that  pleasure  must 
be  of  an  exalted  character  and  need  not  be  frivolous  and 
enervating.  Prose  and  verse  should  be  made  attractive 
in  the  method  and  process  of  their  presentation,  and, 
yet,  this  is  not  to  say  that  they  should  be  unintellectual. 
It  can  not  be  too  strongly  urged  in  seeking  a  true  con- 
ception of  literature,  that  it  is  not  and  ought  not  to  be 
shallow  and  superficial.  A  recent  critic,  in  commenting 
on  Modern  Authorship,  remarks,  ^' that,  as  there  may  be 
in  literature  substance  without  style,  so,  there  may  be 
style  without  substance — the  perfection  of  manner  and 
the  minimum  of  material."  This  is  true,  indeed,  as  a 
literary  possibility,  and,  yet,  such  a  collection  of  words 


28  LITERATURE 

is  iu  110  sense  deserving  of  the  name  of  literature.  All 
genuine  authorship  has  some  degree  of  educational  or 
educating  value.  Even  the  lightest  forms  of  what  is 
called  light  literature  need  not  thereby  be  devoid  of 
mental  tone  and  quality.  The  best  poetry  and  fiction 
and  descriptive  miscellany,  tho  written  mainly  with  the 
intent  to  interest  and  please,  has  a  substratum  of  good 
sense,  and  is  out  of  place  when  classified  among  the  trivial 
and  trashy  effusions  of  the  day.  Even  wit  and  humor, 
as  every  well-informed  critic  knows,  must  have  an  intel- 
lectual type  and  temper  in  them  to  meet  their  highest 
ends.  In  this  spirit  writes  Vinet,  the  French  critic, 
^'The  art  of  writing  (literature)  implies  so  universal,  so 
varied,  so  delicate  an  application  of  all  the  faculties  of 
the  understanding  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to  imagine  a 
course  of  gymnastics  more  profitable  to  those  faculties. 
It  is  almost  the  art  of  thinking.  It  is  the  art  of  thinking 
applied  to  the  expression  of  our  own  thoughts.  All  great 
thinkers  have  not  been  great  writers,  but  where  is  the 
great  writer  who  has  been  in  other  respects  a  common- 
place man. ' ' 

When  Emerson  tells  us  that  "Literature  is  a  record 
of  the  best  thoughts, ' '  or  when  Matthew  Arnold  speaks 
of  it  as  the  embodiment  '■ '  of  the  best  that  has  been 
known  and  thought  iu  the  world, ' '  this  mental  and  dis- 
ciplinary element  iu  all  good  authorship  is  emphasized 
as  opposed  to  the  current  view  of  its  character  as  a  mere 
accomplishment  or  secondary  issue. 

So,  in  a  very  suggestive  paragraph  by  John  Morley, 
as  he  writes — "Literature  consists  of  all  the  books  ,  .  . 
where  moral  truth  and  human  passion  are  touched  with 
a  certain  largeness,  sanity  and  attraction  of  form."  By 
"largeness  and  sanity,"  the  English  critic  refers  to  the 


A   DEFINITION  29 

vigorous  mind  that  lives  and  moves  in  the  center  of  all 
genuine  written  expression,  making  it  what  it  is  and 
coordinating  it  with  all  other  kinds  of  high  human 
activity. 

4.  The  important  place  of  the  Ideal,  Impassioned, 
and  Artistic  in  Literature  is  to  be  noted.  Essential 
as  thought  is  to  Literature,  Bascom  is  right  when  he 
says  that  'thought  alone  can  not  save  a  work  to  Litera- 
ture." There  must  be  a  certain  medium  or  manner 
through  and  by  which  the  thought  is  expressed  so  as  to 
make  its  expression  literary  rather  than  something  else, 
be  it  what  it  may.  These  media  are  Imagination,  Feel- 
ing, and  Taste,  by  the  presence  or  absence  of  which  we 
are  enabled  to  classify  all  written  expression  as  literary 
or  unliterary.  These  elements  will  repay  a  special  ex- 
amination and  are  substantially  one. 

Literature,  we  say,  is  the  expression  of  thought  in 
Ideal,  Impassioned,  and  Artistic  forms.  The  thought 
itself,  however  important,  must  be  mediated  through 
these  three  channels  in  order  to  constitute  it  Literature 
as  distinct  from  any  other  form  of  the  expression  of 
thought,  philosophic  or  scientific,  with  which  it  might 
be  confounded.  Hence,  as  we  have  seen.  Literature  has 
been  called  ''the  handicraft  of  the  imagination."  So 
Pater,  "  Literature  is  the  representation  of  fact  connected 
with  soul  " — i.e.,  there  must  be  in  literature  that  which 
awakens  a  jjersonal  response  from  him  who  reads  or  hears 
it.     As  Mr.  Arnold  would  say,  it  must  be  "interesting." 

So  as  to  the  artistic,  there  must  be  the  ' '  merit  of  exe- 
cution, ' '  a  cast  and  style  about  the  product  not  expected 
outside  of  the  specifically  literary  province.  Whenever 
thought  is  embodied  in  forms  that  appeal  to  our  ideals, 


30  LITEBATUBE 

our  sensibilities  and  our  tastes,  rather  than  in  those 
which  appeal  merely  or  mainly  to  the  speculative  reason 
or  the  logical  faculty  or  to  solely  utilitarian  ends,  litera- 
ture may  be  said  to  exist. 

Those  books  which  best  express  these  elements  are  the 
most  literary.  Those  authors  in  whose  personality  they 
are  the  most  potent  factors  are  the  most  literary,  while 
any  book  or  writer  conspicuously  or  essentially  devoid 
of  them,  may  be  this  or  that,  may  serve  this  or  that  pur- 
pose, but  is  not  literary  in  the  truest  meaning  of  that 
word. 

Men  may  have  ideas  numerous  and  valuable.  They 
have  not  written  literature,  nor  can  they  write  it  apart 
from  the  presence  of  ideals.  Men  may  write  that  which 
is  entitled  to  the  praise  of  being  sensible.  Unless  it  have 
within  it  the  element  of  sensibility,  it  is  not  literature. 
So,  also,  talent  may  exist  in  most  pronounced  forms.  Its 
best  embodiment  can  not  be  called  literature,  save  as  it 
is  vitally  connected  with  taste. 

With  this  interpretation  of  Literature  before  us,  some 
suggestions  are  in  place  relative  to  it. 

(a)  We  find  herein  a  true  test  or  principle  of  classi- 
fication of  the  different  embodiments  of  human  thought, 
viz.,  whether  or  not  such  thought  is  expressed  through 
these  three  agencies  as  media.  If  so,  it  is,  to  a  greater 
or  less  degree,  literary.  If  not,  it  must  be  relegated  to 
other  spheres  and  subserve  other  ends.  Hence,  we  say, 
and  say  correctly,  of  such  a  work  as  Newton's  ''Prin- 
cipia"  that  it  belongs  to  the  unliterary  or  non-literary 
province  of  mental  activity  or  expression  in  writing.  It 
belongs  to  the  unliterary  department  of  Mathematics 
and  Physical  Science.  Whe  well's  ^'Philosophy  of  The  In- 
ductive Sciences,"  or  Mill's  "Logic,"  or  Kant's  "Crit- 


A  DEFINITION  31 

ique"  are  not  literary  books,  but  come  within  the  reahn 
of  Metaphysics  or  Mental  Science,  as  Edwards'  ' '  Treat- 
ise on  The  Will"  falls  under  Ethical  Science,  and  Adam 
Smith's  ''Wealth  of  Nations,"  under  Economic  or  Polit- 
ical Science.  So,  as  to  Blackstone's  ''Commentaries," 
Quintilian's  "Institutes,"  Aristotle's  "Poetic"  and 
Milton's  " De  Doctrina  Christiana, "  and  Kames'  "Ele- 
ments of  Criticism. ' '  Whatever  these  books  are  or  are 
not,  they  are  not  literature  or  literary  in  the  meaning 
already  given,  and,  mainly,  because  they  are  too  unimag- 
inative, unimpassioned,  and  unartistic.  Characterized 
as  they  are  by  their  wealth  of  thought,  the  thought  is 
embodied  in  technical  and  practical  forms  for  technical 
and  practical  ends,  and  is  literary  only  in  that  subor- 
dinate and  indirect  sense  in  which  any  written  embodi- 
ment of  ideas  may  be  said  to  be  such.  Imagination, 
sentiment  and  art  however  present  are  not  sufficiently 
present  to  give  to  these  productions  literary  character 
and  weight.  They  are  too  matter-of-fact  to  possess  them. 
(&)  Herein,  also,  is  found  a  test  by  which  the  different 
forms  of  Literature  itself  may  be  classified  as  more  or 
less  literary  by  way  of  comparison.  Hence,  we  say  that 
Epic,  Dramatic  and  Lyric  Verse  are  unquestionably 
literary  as  forms  of  verse,  while  it  is  an  open  question 
whether  didactic  verse,  so  called,  is  such,  by  reason  of 
its  want  of  imagination  and  sympathy.  Pope's  "Essay 
on  Criticism"  and  "Essay  on  Man"  are  too  unimagin- 
ative and  dispassionate  to  be  literary  in  the  sense  in 
which  "Paradise  Lost"  and  "Hamlet"  and  Gray's 
"  Elegy  "  are  such,  and  this  is  true  even  tho  they  may 
possess  a  good  degree  of  esthetic  skill.  So  as  to  Tup- 
per's  "  Proverbial  Philosophy  "  and  much  of  Whitman's 
so-called  poetry.     If  these  works  and  such  as  these  are 


32  LITEEATUBE 

called  Poetry,  it  must  be  so  with  a  certain  amount  of 
mental  reservation  and  with  the  clear  understanding  that 
they  are  not  such  in  the  sense  in  which  Shakespeare's 
Plays  are  such. 

Precisely  so  as  to  the  various  forms  of  Prose.  Histor- 
ical Portraiture  of  events  and  men  ;  the  graphic  Descrip- 
tion of  great  scenes  in  life  and  nature;  the  emotional 
utterances  of  great  orators  reduced  to  writing;  and  the 
varied  delineations  of  the  novelist,  are  literature  and 
literary,  and  so  understood  to  be,  while  to  what  degree, 
if,  indeed,  to  any  high  degree,  the  textual  criticism  of 
authors  is  such,  or  what  is  called  philosophic  prose  is 
such,  is  an  open  question.  Prescott's  ^'Conquest  of 
Mexico,"  Wallace's  ^^  Vesuvius,"  the  recorded  deliver- 
ances of  Burke  and  "Webster,  and  the  novels  of  Hawthorne 
and  Charlotte  Bronte  are  literary  books,  in  a  truer  sense, 
perchance,  than  are  such  accredited  literary  books  as 
Bacon's  '' Advancement  of  Learning,"  Hooker's  "Ex- 
clesiastical  Polity, "  Schlegel's  "  Philosophy  of  History, " 
and  much  of  that  literature  that  passes  under  the  name 
of  Critical  Miscellany,  the  very  phrase  Literary  Criticism 
seeming  almost  to  imply  a  contradiction. 

(c)  On  the  basis  of  this  view  of  Literature,  we  see  the 
real  unity  as  well  as  the  diversity  of  Literary  Forms  and, 
most  especially,  of  Poetry  and  Prose.  Poetry  alike  with 
Prose  is  the  expression  of  thought,  while  Prose  alike 
with  Poetry  expresses  thought  through  imagination,  feel- 
ing and  taste,  while  each  involves  the  element  of  pleasure 
or  interest  among  its  final  purposes.  The  difference  lies 
only  in  the  fact  that,  apart  from  the  metric  form  of  the 
one  and  the  unmetrical  form  of  the  other.  Poetry  seeks 
to  emphasize  more  fully  than  Prose  the  elements  of 
imagination  and  taste,  and  to  seek  more  directly  the 


A  DEFINITION  33 

pleasure  of  the  reader.  In  all  essential  elements,  how- 
ever, they  are  one,  and  seek,  each  in  its  own  way,  to 
secure  what  all  literature  seeks  to  secure,  the  interpreta- 
tion of  truth  to  the  human  mind,  the  revelation  of  man 
to  himself,  and  the  elevation,  thereby,  of  the  thought  and 
purpose  of  the  race. 

(d)  We  further  note  that  Literary  Genius  lies  in  the 
Union  of  all  these  elements  in  symmetrical  and  effective 
activity.  If  Professor  Dowden  is  right  in  calling  Liter- 
ature an  ^^interpretation  of  external  nature  and  of  the 
nature  of  man ' '  this  complex  nature  of  man  within  the 
spacious  domain  of  the  imagination,  taste  and  sensibilities 
is  to  be  viewed  in  its  unity  and  so  interpreted  to  the 
student  of  letters. 

Any  one  side  of  this  nature  developed  by  the  writer  to 
the  exclusion  or  partial  neglect  of  the  others  would  be 
abnormal  in  itself  and  lead  to  injurious  results.  The 
ideal  would  develop  into  the  visionary,  the  artistic  into 
art  for  art's  sake,  and  feeling  into  superficial  and  vapid 
sentiment.  The  Great  Writers,  as  Eobertson  calls  them 
in  his  invaluable  series,  are  great  representatives  of  liter- 
ature largely  because  they  are  exponents  of  this  unity 
and  give  to  each  its  proper  place  in  the  comprehensive 
study  of  man. 

It  has  thus  been  especially  easy,  by  the  abuse  of  a 
good  principle,  to  reduce  Literature  to  Belles-Lettres  or 
Polite  Learning  ;  to  exalt  Poetry  unduly  over  Prose  ;  to 
magnify  the  value  of  the  Novel,  the  Sketch  and  Story  ; 
to  follow  Arnold  rather  than  Emerson  ;  to  give  to  Liter- 
ature no  place  outside  the  province  of  the  Fine  Arts, 
and,  by  making  it  mainly  an  exercise  of  taste,  to  reduce 
it  to  the  level  of  the  esthetic.  So  strong  is  this  tendency 
that  it  reappears  in  every  age  and  makes  it  difficult  for 


34  LITEBATUEE 

those  who  insist  upon  the  union  of  taste,  imagination 
and  feeling  to  find  a  favorable  hearing. 

One  of  the  most  dangerous  features  of  modern  literary 
development,  so  called,  is  the  reducing  of  the  ideal  and  the 
sympathetic  to  a  minimum  and  the  exalting  unduly  what 
is  called  the  Practical  and  the  Eeal.  The  Experimental 
Novel  has  thus  been  fruitful  of  untold  evil  in  hastening 
that  decay  of  sentiment  and  faith  and  hope  and  outlook 
which  goes  on  quite  rapidly  enough  by  the  force  of  its 
own  inherent  energy.  Eealism  in  Fiction  and  general 
literature  has  been  pushed  to  such  an  extreme  as  to  make 
literature  itself  in  the  eyes  of  many  a  cold,  heartless  and 
often  a  revolting  exposition  of  life,  devoid  of  sweetness 
and  cheer  and  promise;  of  inspiration  and  aspiration; 
and  possessed  of  no  more  essential  vitality  than  the  blind 
forces  of  nature  or  the  mechanical  appliances  that  obey 
the  will  of  man. 

And  here  we  come  in  our  definition  and  conception  of 
Literature  to  the  sum  and  substance  of  it  all,  viz.,  to  the 
fact  that  Literature,  after  all,  is  a  something  more  than 
words  arranged  in  such  and  such  a  way  and  supposed  to 
subserve  such  and  such  a  purpose.  It  is,  as  Dowden 
finely  expresses  it,  ''a  revelation  of  the  enduring  possi- 
bilities of  human  life,  of  finer  modes  of  feeling,  of  dawn- 
ing hopes,  of  new  horizons  of  thought,  of  a  broadening 
faith  and  of  unimagined  ideals. ' ' 

We  sometimes  speak  of  Literature  as  a  Profession  and, 
in  these  days  of  material  Philosophy  and  the  Bread  and 
Butter  Sciences,  and  the  tyranny  of  Commercialism,  it 
is  an  easy  process  to  reduce  such  a  form  of  effort  to  the 
level  of  the  mercenary  and  practical,  and,  if  this  is  all, 
then  is  our  occupation  gone,  and  it  is  better  to  turn  our 
steps  toward  some  other  province  where  we  may  have 


A   DEFINITION'  35 

"  ample  room  and  verge  enough  "  to  express  our  thought 
and  express  ourselves,  quite  apart  from  the  ever  present 
idea  of  the  specific  objective  end  to  be  attained. 

Literature,  it  can  not  be  too  strongly  urged,  is  the 
exponent  and  revealer  of  the  best  that  is  in  us  in  order 
to  accomplish  the  best  possible  ends.  It  is  instinct  with 
thought  and  soul,  with  imagination  and  taste  and  spirit- 
ual life,  and  fails  of  its  high  mission  when  it  does  not 
stimulate,  enlarge  and  refine  the  entire  nature  of  man. 

One  of  the  supreme  functions  of  Literature,  we  may 
say,  is  Mental  and  Moral  Enfranchisement.  It  sets  fi:-ee 
all  human  faculties  and  forces — frees  them  from  preju- 
dice and  passion  and  selfishness  and  sordidness,  and  lifts 
the  whole  being  aloft  to  that  plane  of  '^high  thinking" 
of  which  Wordsworth  so  aptly  speaks. 

That  this  conception  of  Literature  is  not  the  prevailing 
one  is  all  the  greater  reason  why  it  should  be  pressed 
and  sanctioned  until  it  receives  something  like  a  deferen- 
tial hearing.  English  and  American  Letters  are  in 
urgent  need  of  this  Miltonic  conception  of  authorship, 
whereby  ceasing  to  view  it  as  either  a  mere  esthetic 
accomplishment  or  a  means  of  material  livelihood  we 
shall  view  it  as  the  embodiment  of  a  man's  best  mental 
and  ethical  energies,  whereby  the  thought  and  life  of  his 
time  may  be  purified  and  widened. 

The  province  of  the  technical  apart^,  there  is  no  sphere 
or  function  in  which  the  author  may  not  exercise  his 
gifts  and  no  worthiest  end  which  he  may  not  hope  to 
secure.  Shakespeare  and  Goethe  and  Dante  and  Milton 
and  Vergil  and  Tennyson  and  Lowell  and  Emerson — 
these  are  they  who  understood  and  magnified  their  office 
and  for  whose  successors  in  ever  larger  number  the 
modern  world  of  letters  is  patiently  waiting. 


CHAPTER   THEEE 
METHODS  OF  LITERARY  STUDY 

It  is  patent  to  every  careful  observer  of  educational 
progress  in  modern  times  that  new  interest  is  constantly 
awakening  in  all  that  pertains  to  language  and  litera- 
ture, nor  is  it  possible  or  necessary  to  state  in  which  of 
these  two  sections  of  the  same  general  department  such 
interest  is  the  more  pronounced.  While,  as  to  philology, 
the  student' s  attention  is  directed  to  the  rapid  increase 
of  books  and  appliances,  careful  inspection  will  mark  a 
similar  enthusiasm  in  distinctively  literary  work.  This 
healthful  zeal  is  seen  in  all  the  branches  of  such  work  ; 
in  history,  fiction,  biography,  in  descriptive,  philosoph- 
ical, and  miscellaneous  prose,  and  in  poetry.  One  of 
the  special  features  of  this  modern  development  is  found 
in  the  large  variety  of  suggestion  that  is  given  relative 
to  the  best  methods  on  which  such  a  study  may  be  con- 
ducted, and  how  the  academic  student  or  the  citizen  at 
large  can  best  secure  those  helpful  results  which  are  sup- 
posed to  follow  from  diligent  attention  thereto.  Such 
volumes  as  the  ' '  English  Men  of  Letters ' '  series,  edited 
by  Morley,  or  the  ''American  Men  of  Letters"  series, 
edited  by  Warner,  are  of  this  special  character.  They 
are  admirably  designed,  on  the  one  hand,  to  give  a  suf- 
ficiently scholarly  view  of  English  and  American  letters 
to  satisfy  the  critical  student,  and,  on  the  other,  so  to 
simplify  and  vary  the  subject  discussed  as  to  bring  it 
within  the  province  of  the  readable  and  popular.     Much 

36 


METHODS   OF  STUDY  37 

of  the  profit  and  pleasure  arising  from  such  a  form  of 
intellectual  pursuit  depends  on  the  particular  method  of 
procedure.  No  department  has  sufiered  more  than  that 
of  letters,  both  from  the  absence  of  any  definite  method 
and  from  the  application  of  superficial  methods.  In  no 
department  is  a  well-adjusted  order  of  study  more  desir- 
able and  feasible.  It  will  be  the  purpose  of  this  chapter 
briefly  to  enforce  some  of  those  cardinal  principles  which 
the  student  of  literature  must  have  in  mind  in  the  prose- 
cution of  his  work.  Applicable  in  substance  to  all  lit- 
eratures, we  shall  find  it  of  benefit  to  apply  the  teaching 
more  especially  to  that  of  English-speaking  peoples. 

1.  Literary.  The  study  of  literature  should,  first  of 
all,  be  a  literary  study,  as  distinct  from  any  other  pos- 
sible form.  As  has  been  well  remarked,  ''We  are  to 
learn  language  by  the  study  of  language,  and  literature 
by  the  study  of  literature."  Literature  is  one  thing, 
linguistics  is  another.  Hence,  those  among  us  who  in- 
cline to  make  the  study  of  literature  purely,  or  in  the 
main,  philological,  are  guilty  of  confounding  two  lines  of 
study  that  should  be  kept  clearly  distinct.  Such  an 
erroneous  conception  seems  to  be  gaining  rather  than 
losing  ground  in  our  day,  and,  unless  checked  in  its 
progress,  will  work  irreparable  harm  to  the  cause  it 
espouses.  Let  us  not  be  misunderstood.  There  is  a  true 
sense  in  which  literature  as  a  branch  of  study  has  to  do 
with  language  as  a  study.  No  one  will  deny,  for  exam- 
ple, that  in  the  examination  of  such  an  author  as  Milton 
or  Coleridge  close  attention  must  be  had  to  certain  lin- 
guistic features — as  to  the  vocabulary,  in  its  richness  or 
poverty  ;  as  to  the  use  of  words  in  etymological  or  pop- 
ular senses  ;  as  to  correctness  of  idioms  and  other  mat- 


38  LITEBATTJBE 

ters  mainly  philological.  There  should  be  enough  of 
this  element  in  all  literary  work  to  secure  the  presence 
of  good  diction  and  propriety  of  structure,  but  this  is 
the  limit  of  its  presence.  When  such  study  of  an  author 
becomes,  however,  as  it  so  often  does,  mainly  a  diction- 
ary study  of  words  and  forms,  then  does  it  overreach 
itself,  and  impair  to  that  degree  the  true  function  of 
literary  art. 

In  the  sphere  of  poetry,  no  author  should  have  suf- 
fered less,  and  none  has  suffered  more,  than  Shakespeare, 
at  the  hands  of  these  ^ '  anatomists ' '  of  literature.  This 
order  of  critics  is  fast  succeeding  in  reducing  Shake- 
spearean study  to  that  of  diction  and  structure.  Even 
so  excellent  a  series  of  English  prose  and  poetry  as  the 
"Clarendon  Press"  series  is  not  without  fault  at  this 
point.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  much  of  this  evil  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  such  so-called  literary  work  is  prepared 
originally  for  teachers  and  schools  of  learning.  "With 
the  idea  of  a  manual  prominently  before  the  author  or 
editor,  he  is  led  to  follow  the  class-room  method  of  verbal 
analysis,  rather  than  that  distinctively  literary  method 
that  is  applied  more  easily  in  the  outside  literary  world, 
and  should  find  a  larger  place  in  the  college  itself.  Lit- 
erature must,  at  times,  be  studied  linguistically,  but, 
when  so  studied,  things  are  to  be  called  by  their  right 
names.  Craik's  "English  of  Shakespeare,"  as  illus- 
trated in  the  play  of  "  Julius  Caesar,"  is  a  strictly  philo- 
logical study  of  the  dramatist,  and  does  not  claim  a  place 
under  the  head  of  literary  study  proper.  Morley's 
"English  Writers,"  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  strictly  lit- 
erary study  of  English  letters.  Hudson's  "Art  and 
Characters  of  Shakespeare  "  is  of  this  order,  as  is  War- 
ner's   "Life    of   Irving,"    or    Lounsbury's    "Life    of 


METHODS  OF  STUDY  39 

Cooper."  More  precisely,  the  literary  metliod  is  that 
by  which  the  study  of  the  author's  style  is  made  promi- 
nent. In  such  a  study,  diction,  structure,  and  idiom 
will  enter,  but  always  subordinately.  The  great  topics 
will  be  :  the  way  in  which  the  author  embodies  his 
thought,  his  intellectual  cast  as  a  writer,  the  quality  and 
range  of  his  imagination,  the  clearness  of  his  poetic  con- 
ceptions, his  narrative  skill,  and  his  ability  to  illustrate 
the  great  principles  of  successful  discourse.  In  fine,  the 
study  is  one  of  taste,  art,  and  sensibility.  It  addresses 
itself  to  the  sublime  and  beautiful,  to  the  appropriate 
and  effective  in  written  expression,  and  ministers  as  such 
to  the  highest  forms  of  mental  pleasure.  It  is,  in  the 
best  sense  of  the  words,  artistic  and  esthetic,  a  study  of 
style  as  related  to  the  thought  and  personality  behind  it. 
There  is  a  valid  intellectual  element  in  all  true  literary 
art  as  an  esthetic  art,  and  it  should  never  be  lowered  to 
that  level  on  which  the  French  school  of  polite  letters 
has  seen  fit  to  place  it.  The  strictly  literary  method, 
however,  is  but  one  among  a  number,  and  reveals  the 
flagrant  error  of  those  who  have  made  the  study  of  lit- 
erature nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  study  of  style  and 
esthetic  criticism.  As  a  method,  it  should  never  exist 
alone.  Essential  in  its  true  place,  that  place  is  subor- 
dinate and  not  primary.  It  needs  that  infusion  of  energy 
and  that  special  disciplinary  value  that  comes  from  the 
presence  of  those  higher  modes  to  which  attention  is  to 
be  called. 

2.  Suggestive  and  Comprehensive.  This  is  noticeable 
at  once  as  a  higher  modus  than  the  one  just  dis- 
cussed. While  it  is  a  study  both  of  thought  and  style, 
the  primary  reference  is  to  the  former.     It  has  mainly 


40  LITEEATUBE 

to  do  with  the  intellectual  character  of  the  authorship 
examined,  and  ][but  secondarily  with  its  esthetic  and 
emotive  elements.  It  might  fitly  be  termed  the  philo- 
sophic method,  as  having  to  do  with  causes  and  effects, 
laws  and  agencies  in  literary  life,  rather  than  with  any 
form  of  detailed  inspection.  On  such  a  method,  the  limits 
of  literary  eras  are  determined  more  by  the  development 
of  ideas  in  the  national  mind  than  by  anything  merely 
chronological.  There  is  now  what  President  Bascom  has 
called,  the  Philosophy  of  Literature.  There  is  now  an 
inquiry  into  the  scientific  basis  of  literature  as  an  art ; 
its  hidden  relations  to  political,  social,  and  religious  life ; 
the  great  active  forces  that  underlie  and  determine  it, — 
in  a  word,  the  principles  that  compose  it.  On  such  a 
plan  as  this,  the  study  is  at  once  uplifted  from  the  level 
of  the  technical  and  formal  to  a  real  intellectual  gym- 
nastic. It  is  more  than  philosophical.  It  is  a  psycho- 
logical study  outside  of  mental  science  proper,  and  serves 
to  coordinate  literature  with  all  that  is  far-reaching  and 
thorough.  In  terming  this  method  a  suggestive  and  com- 
prensive  one,  the  student  of  literature  is  guarded  against 
that  unduly  minute  examination  of  authorship  which 
magnifies  the  text  above  the  spirit  and  forestalls  any 
such  result  as  genuine  literary  stimulus.  ''The  marvel 
of  Shakespeare's  diction,"  says  Mr.  Whipple,  ''is  its 
immense  suggestiveness — the  power  of  radiating  through 
single  expressions  a  life  and  meaning  which  they  do  not 
retain  in  their  removal  to  dictionaries."  If  this  be  so, 
the  principle  will  apply  outside  of  the  great  dramatist's 
work,  and  is  so  applied  by  representative  minds.  The 
language  of  our  leading  authors  is  indicative  rather  than 
exhaustive.  There  is  a  potential  reserve  behind  all  that 
is  made  actual  in  expression,  and  "  more  is  meant  than 


METHODS  OF  STUDY  41 

meets  the  ear. "  Hints  and  glimpses  are  given  in  order 
to  awaken  interest  and  reward  research,  and  the  student 
is  to  interpret  the  truth  in  the  same  comprehensive  man- 
ner in  which  the  author  has  embodied  the  truth.  On 
the  basis  of  such  a  method  as  this,  barren  and  fruitful 
eras  alike  yield  a  rational  explanation.  We  understand 
the  Restoration  and  Augustan  periods.  Literature  has  a 
soul  as  well  as  a  visible  form.  Conscience,  intellect,  and 
will  are  there  as  well  as  taste.  Despite  the  strong  ten- 
dency to  the  microscopic  method,  this  wider  one  is  fast 
gaining  the  practical  support  of  modern  critics,  and  may 
yet  fully  obtain  among  us.  Until  such  an  era  opens,  the 
best  results  of  literary  criticism  will  be  out  of  reach. 

3.  Logical.  This  observance  of  what  may  be  called 
a  logical  consecutiveness  in  literature  would  seem  to  be 
involved  in  the  very  word  ^'method."  The  terms  are 
synonymous,  and  yet  their  wide  separation  is  so  frequent 
as  to  call  for  special  notice.  By  the  logical  method  in 
literature  is  meant  the  emphasis  of  its  unity  and  regular 
sequence  all  along  the  line  of  its  different  periods  of  de- 
velopment. Amid  the  limitless  diversity  of  English  let- 
ters there  is  the  presence  of  this  unity.  Despite  all 
variation  and  digression  there  is  ever  visible  a  law  of 
continuity,  holding  everything  in  place,  and  enabling 
the  student  to  relate  all  that  precedes  to  all  that  follows. 
There  is  nothing  of  what  Coleridge  would  call  "  the  non- 
sequacious."  All  is  coordinated  and  centralized.  It  is 
one  of  the  first  offices  of  the  literary  student  to  under- 
stand and  reveal  this  principle,  and  the  more  decidedly 
he  is  able  to  effect  this  the  more  recompensing  will  his 
labor  become.  So  marked  is  this  principle  of  logical 
movement  in  English  letters  that  there  would  seem  to 


42  LITEBATTJEE 

have  been  some  one  superintending  mind  presiding  over 
its  evolutions,  correcting  its  tendency  to  deflect  from 
clearly  drawn  lines  of  advance,  and  restraining  it  witMn 
the  prescribed  bounds  originally  assigned  it.  This  is 
done,  even  while  individual  forces  and  authors  work 
with  the  most  pronounced  freedom.  Tho  these  lines  of 
sequence  may  be  for  a  time  concealed  and  apparently 
obliterated  by  great  political  changes,  by  the  presence  of 
marked  intellectual  lethargy,  or  by  a  general  tendency 
to  literary  lawlessness,  a  careful  scrutiny  will  detect  their 
unvarying  presence,  and  in  due  time  they  will  emerge 
into  prominence.  No  student  of  literature  can  venture 
to  ignore  for  a  moment  the  operation  of  this  law.  Prov- 
idential or  not  as  it  may  be,  it  still  exists  and  acts.  The 
literature  of  any  people  at  all  progressive  is  not  a  hap- 
hazard product  of  fortuitous  combinations,  but  the  nor- 
mal outgrowth  of  definite  principles,  and  is  always  able 
to  give  us  the  best  of  reasons  for  the  particular  type  of 
literary  life  which  it  exhibits  in  any  particular  era.  It 
is  just  by  reason  of  this  logical  closeness  of  structure  and 
growth  that  all  literary  periods  have  more  or  less  over- 
lapped each  other.  Such  encroachment  has  been  un- 
avoidable and  manifest  in  proportion  to  the  individuality 
of  the  era.  No  critic  can  afford  to  be  too  dogmatic  as  to 
the  boundaries  of  such  epochs.  We  speak  of  Chaucerian 
and  of  Elizabethan  days  ;  of  the  literature  of  the  Common- 
wealth and  of  the  Restoration  5  of  Augustan  and  of  Geor- 
gian letters.  All  such  distinctions  are  but  relative  and 
conventional.  No  one  can  tell  us  precisely  when  First 
English  became  Middle  English,  or  when  English  liter- 
ature as  dialectic  became  fully  national.  Who  can  deter- 
mine exactly  the  limits  of  the  Augustan  age,  or  when  the 
classical  era  of  Pope  as  defined  by  Mr.  Gosse  passed  over 


METHODS  OF  STUDY  43 

into  the  romantic  school  of  Burns  and  Cowper  1  Con- 
venient as  such  lines  may  be,  they  have  no  existence  in 
the  nature  of  things,  and  will  always  mislead  him  who  so 
interprets  them.  The  logical  nexus  is  beneath  the  letter 
and  form.  "  In  the  literature  of  any  people,"  says  Mor- 
ley,  ' '  we  perceive,  under  all  contrasts  of  form  produced 
by  variable  social  influences,  the  one  national  character 
from  first  to  last."  It  is  in  this  national  character  that 
we  find  the  law  of  continuity.  It  is  because  amid  the 
infinitely  diversified  unlikenesses  of  such  character  there 
is  a  substantial  likeness  and  unity  that  the  sequence  is 
apparent.  This  is  signally  true  of  the  English  mind  and 
soul  as  expressed  in  written  form.  The  Englishness  is 
always  marked,  however  flexible  its  forms.  There  is 
behind  every  author  of  note  both  a  national  and  a  per- 
sonal individuality.  To  say,  therefore,  that  we  must 
proceed  after  a  logical  method  is  simply  to  say  that  we 
must  follow  the  development  of  the  national  character  in 
any  literature,  let  it  lead  us  where  it  may. 

4.  Comparative.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  interna- 
tional literature.  Such  is  the  local  position  of  the  Brit- 
ish Isles  relative  to  the  other  countries  of  Europe  that 
this  method  becomes  especially  essential  in  our  liter- 
ary study.  Speaking  geographically  and  etymologic- 
ally,  it  may  be  said  that  English  literature  should  not  be 
insulated — confined  to  the  island  in  which  it  took  national 
origin.  The  leading  nations  of  modem  Europe  on  each 
side  of  the  English  Channel  are  so  conjoined  in  the  great 
movements  of  civilization,  and  so  interdependent  in  the 
sphere  of  national  industries,  that  the  literary  life  of  the 
one  affects  that  of  all,  and  is  affected  by  it.  On  the  very 
highways  that  are  opened  up  for  commerce  and  trade 


44  LITERATURE 

these  higher  influences  find  their  avenues  of  entrance, 
while,  apart  from  this,  scores  of  unseen  agencies  are  at 
work  to  bring  adjacent  peoples  more  fraternally  together 
in  the  interests  of  general  culture.  The  Continent  of 
Europe  may  thus  be  regarded  by  the  literary  student  as 
one  vast  central  organism  in  the  world's  culture  rather 
than  as  a  collection  of  independent  centers.  The  Straits 
of  Dover  are  far  too  narrow  to  effect  any  valid  separa- 
tion of  interest  and  progress.  As  the  student  of  English 
applies  this  comparative  method  more  specifically,  he  is 
led  to  note  the  threefold  infiuence  of  Italy,  France,  and 
Germany.  The  first  of  these  countries  developed  its 
golden  age  under  Dante  and  Petrarch  just  at  the  time 
when  English  poetry  was  taking  on  its  national  form  in 
the  pages  of  Chaucer.  Later  on,  in  the  days  of  Henry 
VIII.  and  Elizabeth,  it  exhibited  an  almost  equaUy  vigor- 
ous life  in  the  persons  of  Ariosto  and  Tasso.  Hence,  the 
influence  of  Italian  letters  upon  English  in  Chaucer's 
time,  and,  especially,  in  the  days  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey, 
Spenser  and  Sidney,  must  form  an  important  factor  in 
the  study  of  our  authorship.  In  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, in  England,  the  second  of  these  countries  rose  into 
prominence.  The  effect  of  the  Norman-French  in  the 
Middle  English  times  quite  apart,  a  distinctively  Gallic 
school  of  writers  appeared  at  the  Eestoration,  dating  its 
inception  as  far  back  as  the  founding  of  the  French 
Academy  in  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  Visible,  particu- 
larly, in  the  realm  of  dramatic  poetry  under  Dryden,  it 
permeated  the  national  thought  and  life,  and  reappeared 
in  more  didactic  form  in  the  days  of  Pope  through  the 
agency  of  Boileau.  At  the  very  time  when  literature  at 
home  was  inferior  and  despondent,  such  French  authors 
as  Bacine,  Moliere,  Fenelon,  LaSage,  and  Voltaire  were 


METHODS  OF  STUDY  45 

in  their  glory,  and  England,  of  course,  was  under  Con- 
tinental sway.  The  supremacy  was  partly  for  good  and 
mainly  for  evil.  So  as  to  Germany.  Quite  devoid  of 
influence  in  England  at  the  invention  of  printing  and  the 
time  of  Luther,  it  came  to  potency  in  the  reign  of  George 
II.  through  the  influence  of  Klopstock  and  Lessing,  and 
rose  to  masterly  prominence  under  George  III.  through 
the  authorship  of  Schiller  and  Goethe.  It  was,  in  fact, 
to  this  invigorating  German  force  as  much  as  to  any 
other  one  cause  that  the  correct  school  of  English  poetry, 
under  Pope,  gave  way  to  a  more  impassioned  verse.  It 
may  almost  be  said  to  have  introduced  the  era  of  modern 
English  literature.  When  Southey  and  Wordsworth  are 
seen  tendering  their  respects  to  Klopstock,  and  Coleridge 
busies  himself  with  the  translating  of  Schiller's  dramas, 
it  is  evident  that  international  comity  exists  among 
authors.  Enough  has  been  said  to  mark  the  necessity  of 
this  comparative  method.  It  is  thus  that  Mr.  Sismondi 
gives  us  his  graphic  view  of  the  connected  literatures  of 
Southern  Europe.  It  is  thus  that  Schlegel  presents  a 
combined  account  of  dramatic  writings  from  Euripides 
to  Shakespeare,  while  our  own  historian,  Hallam,  fol- 
lows a  similar  method  in  his  narrative  of  European 
literature.  In  each  case  the  method  is  the  same,  and  is 
happily  in  keeping  with  that  plan  of  study  now  obtain- 
ing in  all  the  important  departments  of  human  thought. 
In  common  with  the  fact  that  the  modern  drift  is  toward 
specialisms,  it  is  fortunately  true  that  specialists  them- 
selves are  obliged  to  apply  the  comparative  method  with- 
in the  domain  of  their  respective  specialisms.  As  the 
scientific  specialist  in  any  one  science  must  be  conversant 
with  all  forms  of  physical  science,  so  the  man  of  letters, 
as  a  specialist,  must  aim  to  compass  the  general  province 


46  LITERATURE 

of  letters  as  it  affects  the  separate  section  in  which  he  is 
working.  It  is  impossible  to  see  how,  upon  such  a  basis, 
the  student  of  literature  can  be  narrow-minded — how  he 
can  fail  to  see  the  truth  in  all  its  bearings  and  so  present 
it.  Literary  criticism  is  the  last  sphere  in  which  bigotry 
should  have  sway.  How  far  existing  facts  correspond 
with  such  a  theory  must  be  left  to  the  intelligent  observer 
to  decide. 

5.  Historical.  So  vital  is  the  relation  of  literature  to 
history  that  the  one  may  be  said  to  be  the  interpreter 
of  the  other,  or,  rather,  the  two  may  be  viewed  as  but 
different  forms  of  expressing  the  same  fundamental  ideas. 
^'In  Greek  history,"  says  Hare,  ^' there  is  nothing  truer 
than  Herodotus  save  Homer  " ;  to  which  we  might  add, 
conversely,  that  in  Greek  literature  there  is  nothing  truer 
than  Homer  save  Herodotus.  This  historico -literary  law 
is  amply  illustrated  among  all  peoples.  Why  the  golden 
ages  of  Arabian,  Spanish,  Greek,  Eoraan,  and  English 
literature  should  have  occurred  precisely  when  they  did 
is  a  question  that  finds  much  of  its  exj)lanation  in  the 
political  and  religious  history  of  the  respective  nations, 
shaped  as  it  was  in  each  case  by  the  general  providence 
of  God.  No  intelligent  reader  can  fail  to  see  the  close 
connection  between  the  rich  development  of  Arabian  let- 
ters in  the  reign  of  the  caliphs,  from  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury onward,  and  the  political  character  of  the  govern- 
ment which  they  established.  Under  their  benignant 
rule  every  capital  city  was  as  much  a  literary  as  it  was  a 
civil  metropolis.  The  successive  aspirants  to  the  throne 
of  the  Abassides  vied  with  each  other  to  foster  the  inter- 
ests of  letters,  and  nothing  apparently  could  have  limited 
that  development  then  begun  save  what  actually  did 


METHODS   OF  STUDY  47 

arrest  it — a  speedy  return  to  the  evils  of  Mohammedauism. 
The  Periclean  and  Augustan  ages  of  the  older  empires 
came  just  in  the  fulness  of  time,  as  designated  by  his- 
toric life.  If  the  golden  age  of  our  letters  is  coincident 
with  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  it  is  so  largely  by 
reason  of  the  political  character  of  the  time,  and  the  spe- 
cial historical  relations  of  the  epoch  to  the  Protestant 
Eeformation.  Such  an  element  as  this  is  no  less  emphatic 
in  days  of  literary  decline,  as  in  the  fifteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries  in  England.  We  have  but  to  open 
contemporary  records  in  each  of  these  periods  to  find 
sufficient  explanation  of  such  results.  So  true  is  this 
historic  relation  that,  were  the  civil  records  lost,  much 
of  their  substantial  meaning  could  be  gathered  up  from 
the  literature.  In  the  writings  of  Chaucer  a  large  part 
of  Middle  English  records  could  be  restored.  If  Guizot 
and  Clarendon  had  not  written  on  the  English  Eevolu- 
tion,  we  might  resort  to  the  Puritan  authors  of  that 
century  for  the  facts.  If,  later  on,  we  are  startled  by  the 
rise  of  a  skeptical  school  in  literature  in  the  persons  of 
Hume  and  Gibbon,  the  very  literature  is  historical.  It 
is  history  itself.  In  aiming  to  account  for  the  peculiar 
type  of  our  letters  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
we  must  study  with  care  the  history  of  Germany  and 
that  of  the  revolutions  in  France  and  America.  The 
older  students  were  right,  in  motive,  at  least,  when  they 
insisted  on  dividing  literary  periods  into  successive  cen- 
turies, if  so  be  the  progress  of  national  civil  life  might 
exactly  correspond  to  that  of  national  culture.  Their 
error  lay,  as  we  have  seen,  in  pushing  this  division  to 
the  extreme  of  mechanism.  Decided  improvement  is 
manifest  in  modern  times  in  the  application  of  a  higher 
method.     Such    authors  as  Morley,    Arnold,    Azarias, 


48  LITERATURE 

Coppee,  and  Tyler  have  worked  in  obedience  to  it. 
Historical  literature,  or  literary  history,  is  coming  into 
favor.  One  of  the  best  results  of  this  method  is  the 
addition  of  a  new  interest  to  the  department.  The  study 
is  made  attractive.  To  a  narrative  and  descriptive  ele- 
ment, already  present,  it  unites  the  special  feature  of 
historical  narration  and  description.  To  a  distinctively 
personp-l  element  already  present  in  the  lives  of  authors, 
it  adds  the  personality  of  great  historic  personages  and 
peoples.  Events  themselves  assume  personality.  When 
we  deem  it  essential  to  read  Masson's  ''Life  and  Times  of 
Milton ' '  before  reading  Milton  himself,  we  acknowledge 
this  natural  bond  between  the  historic  and  the  literary. 
In  such  a  method  we  derive  the  double  benefit  of  under- 
standing more  clearly  the  meaning  of  the  author  and 
enjoying  more  fully  that  graphic  eifect  which  history 
lends  to  literature. 

6.  Independent  and  Impartial.  It  is  yet  an  open  ques- 
tion in  literature  as  to  what  the  precise  relation  is 
between  what  are  traditionally  termed  standard  authors 
and  those  next  in  rank  :  whether  the  latter  are  in  every 
sense  subordinate,  and  whether,  after  all,  the  dependence 
may  not  be  mutual.  This  is  fitly  suggested  by  Hazlitt, 
in  speaking  of  the  relative  position  of  Shakespeare  to  the 
other  dramatists  of  his  time,  as  he  says  :  ''These  writers 
are  the  scale  by  which  we  can  best  ascend  to  the  high 
table-land  of  literary  prominence  which  Shakespeare  oc- 
cupied." Tho  not  upon  the  table-land  themselves,  they 
make  the  approach  to  it  possible,  even  for  those  who 
may  be  termed  their  superiors.  Eeciprocal  indebtedness 
must  always  exist  between  the  higher  and  the  lower. 
The  one  can  never  look  with  disdain  upon  the  other. 


METHODS  OF  STUDY  49 

Shakespeare  himself  acknowledged  such  indebtedness, 
''desiring  this  man's  wit  and  that  man's  scope."  Had 
it  not  been  for  Wiclif  and  Tyndale,  the  English  Eeform- 
ers  of  later  date  might  have  failed.  Long  before  Bacon 
compacted  those  principles  by  which  men  should  better 
know  how  to  apply  philosophy  to  practical  ends,  Telesio, 
Bernard,  Campanella,  and  others,  had  opened  up  the 
way  along  a  similar  line  of  inquiry.  The  ''Novum  Or- 
ganum"  was  not  so  new,  after  all.  There  has  never 
been  any  great  awakening  in  church  or  state  that  has 
not  thus  been  heralded  and  hastened  by  some  John  the 
Baptist.  This  is  preeminently  so  in  literature  and  in 
English  literature,  and  the  point  we  are  pressing  is,  that 
in  the  estimate  of  these  authors  and  agencies  criticism 
must  be  independent  and  scrupulously  just.  Traditional 
opinions  as  to  first,  second,  and  third  class  writers  must 
be  reexamined  in  the  light  of  newly  revealed  facts,  and 
the  student  must  insist  upon  an  intelligent  freedom  of 
view.  Here,  as  everywhere  else,  men  must  know  what 
they  believe,  and  why  they  believe  it,  nor  is  such  a  state 
of  mind  in  any  sense  devoid  of  deference  to  the  history 
of  opinion  and  rightful  precedent.  We  are  convinced 
that  the  tendency  has  been  far  too  strong  to  study  so- 
called  representative  authors  exclusively,  quite  discon- 
nected from  any  lesser  names.  It  is  still  reserved  for 
some  discriminating  and  kindly  pen  to  write  the  record 
of  English  letters  with  this  thought  in  mind  :  to  give  to 
Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar' s  ;  to  show  what  second- 
rate  authors  have  done  for  first-rate  authors ;  or,  per- 
chance, to  show  that  the  accepted  classification  of  our 
authors  should  be  readjusted  on  more  independent  prin- 
ciples. The  quaint  and  keen  Sir  Thomas  Browne  wrote 
thus  in  ' '  The  Urn  Burial "  :  "  Who  knows  whether  the 


50  LITEEATUEE 

best  of  men  be  known  or  whether  there  be  not  more  re- 
markable persons  forgot  than  any  that  stand  remembered 
in  the  account  of  time  ! ''  The  exclamation  is  a  timely 
one.  Who  knows,  we  may  add,  why  in  English  prose 
we  have  traditionally  limited  the  best  of  standard  au- 
thors, from  Bacon  to  Carlyle,  to  about  a  score  of  names  ! 
Why  should  Addison  and  Lamb  rank  above  Steele  and 
Goldsmith  !  Where  is  the  true  place  of  Charles  Kings- 
ley  in  prose  fiction  ;  of  Coleridge,  in  philosophical  prose; 
of  Dryden,  in  critical  prose  ;  of  Wordsworth,  in  poetry  ? 
In  our  poetry,  as  in  no  other  department  of  our  litera- 
ture, is  a  more  impartial  spirit  needed.  Nowhere  is 
the  traditional  classification  so  arbitrary.  Should  not 
Shakespeare  stand  absolutely  by  himself?  Who  with 
Milton  are  to  form  the  second  group  ?  Is  Mr.  Gosse  at 
all  consistent  in  ranking  Gray  as  high  as  he  does  %  What 
valid  claim  has  such  a  modern  poet  as  Swinburne  to  the 
position  critically  assigned  him?  Why  should  Keats 
occupy  so  exalted  a  place  among  the  classical  poets  of 
English,  and  where,  after  all,  are  we  to  place  the  poet 
laureate  %  Unbiassed  literary  criticism  must  look  at  these 
authors  anew,  and  test  them  by  the  best  criteria  at  com- 
mand, quite  apart  from  what  has  or  has  not  been  agreed 
concerning  them.  Much  of  the  good  work  that  Mr. 
Hazlitt  has  done  for  English  letters  has  been  in  this 
sphere  of  independent  opinion.  Despite  the  hostility 
which  he  naturally  provoked,  many  of  his  positions  are 
as  yet  unassailed.  ^' Very  little  of  me  would  be  left," 
says  the  great  Goethe,  ' '  if  I  could  but  say  what  I  owe  to 
my  predecessors  and  contemporaries. "  It  is  part  of  the 
duty  of  modern  criticism  to  discover  and  express  such 
indebtedness,  and  to  examine  a  vast  number  of  similar 
questions  now  arising  for  settlement.     This  spirit  of  lit- 


METHODS  OF  STUDY  51 

erary  servility  should  certainly  decrease  with  the  growth 
of  general  culture  ;  and  there  are  some  signs  of  promise 
in  this  direction.  The  protest  in  New  England  against 
Mr.  Arnold's  estimate  of  Emerson  was  a  healthful  one, 
in  the  line  of  personal  independence  at  the  very  shrine 
of  the  Delphian  oracle.  Mr.  Fronde's  attitude  relative 
to  Carlyle  in  the  face  of  English  opinion  has  been  simi- 
larly courageous,  while  it  may  be  said  that  in  literature, 
as  elsewhere,  the  principle  is  spreading,  that  if  men  are 
to  give  reasons  for  the  character  of  their  beliefs  they 
must  first  of  all  examine  the  grounds  of  their  beliefs. 
No  method  in  literature  is  more  needful,  and  none  will 
yield  more  helpful  results.  Here,  as  in  higher  spheres, 
it  is  the  truth  that  makes  free. 

Such,  as  we  conceive  them,  are  some  of  the  leading 
methods  applicable  to  the  study  of  literature.  Being, 
first  of  all,  a  literary  method,  it  must  be,  also,  suggest- 
ive, logical,  comparative,  historical,  and  impartial.  On 
such  a  basis  the  study  becomes  one  of  the  highest  order 
as  to  knowledge,  discipline,  and  culture,  and  is  just  as 
recompensing  as  the  student  himself  is  pleased  to  make  it. 
It  is  at  once  a  study  of  mind,  of  character,  and  of  esthetic 
art,  while,  in  addition  to  what  it  is  in  itself,  it  stands  as 
one  of  the  most  helpful  media  through  which  national  life 
is  to  express  itself  and  be  transmitted  to  future  genera- 
tions. Let  it,  moreover,  be  especially  emphasized  that 
there  is  one  thing  more  important  than  the  best  possible 
method  can  be,  and  that  is  the  living  agent  behind  it,  giv- 
ing it  direction  and  effect.  The  student  of  literature,  as 
the  author  or  the  critic,  must,  first  of  all,  be  a  man  whose 
literary  personality  pervades  and  quickens  all  his  work. 
Back  of  English  letters  as  a  product  are  English  men  of 
letters  as  a  creative  cause  and  an  inspiring  principle. 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

THE   SCOPE   OF   LITERATURE— LITERATURE   AND 
SCIENCE 

From  our  investigations  hitherto  as  to  the  meaning 
and  content  of  Literature,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  what 
must  be  the  breadth  and  width  of  its  domain. 

As  expressed  by  Vinet,  ''That  to  which  men  have 
agreed  to  give  the  special  name  of  Literature  .  .  . 
comes  into  contact  with  everything  else.  Other  disci- 
plines have  a  more  definite  area.  It  is  not  so  much  a 
science  apart  as  it  is  the  common  bond,  the  mutual 
interpreter  of  all  sciences.  It  will  always  be  the  meet- 
ing-place of  all  those  thoughts  that  are  very  broadly 
human,  free  from  too  special  application  and  too  imme- 
diate utilities." 

Just  as  the  old  writers  regarded  Philosophy  as  the 
content  and  end  of  all  studies — the  scientia  scientiarum, 
the  ars  artium,  so,  in  this  sense.  Literature  might  be 
viewed  as  the  best  expression  of  truth  in  written  form — 
what  Bacon  would  call  "the  haven  and  port"  of  the 
seeker  after  truth. 

''I  love  the  sciences,"  said  Napoleon.  ''Each  one  of 
them  is  a  beautiful  partial  application  of  the  human 
spirit,  but  Letters  are  the  Human  Spirit  itself — they  are 
the  education  of  the  soul. ' ' 

This  spaciousness  of  scope  may  best  be  seen  by  at- 
tempting a  classification  of  the  various  types  of  literary 

52 


TEE  SCOPE  OF  LITERATURE  53 

expression.  We  may  speak  of  them  as  Ancient,  Medieval 
and  Modern  ;  as  Asiatic  and  European  ;  as  Hebraic  and 
Hellenistic  ;  as  Oriental  and  Occidental ;  as  North  Euro- 
pean and  South  European  ;  as  Pagan  and  Christian  ;  as 
Foreign  and  Native  ;  as  English  and  Continental. 

Posnett,  in  his  ''Comparative  Literature,"  gives  a 
classification  that  may  claim  attention,  for  a  moment. 
There  is,  first.  Local  or  Sectional  Literature,  including 
that  of  the  Clan  and  the  City,  the  first  being  illustrated 
in  such  as  the  Provencal,  the  Gaelic  or  the  Low  Scotch  ; 
and  the  latter,  in  such  as  that  of  Athens,  Florence, 
Edinburgh  and  London. 

Following  this,  is  The  National,  as  a  broader  and 
higher  type,  as  illustrated  in  any  representative  literary 
people — as  France,  England  and  Spain,  these  three,  ac- 
cording to  Possnett,  being  the  only  nations  in  which  ' '  we 
find  truly  national  groups." 

A  Literature,  as  we  know,  takes  on  national  form  and 
function  under  the  guidance  of  an  author  of  genius, 
some  organizing  and  inspiring  mind,  as  Goethe,  among 
the  Germans;  or  Petrarch,  in  Italy;  or  Calderon,  in 
Spain;  or  Lope  de  Vega,  in  Portugal;  or  Chaucer,  in 
England.  We  learn  that  after  Luther  translated  the 
Bible  into  German  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  almost  contemporaneously  with  Tyndale's  ver- 
sion into  English,  the  German  Language  became  classical, 
and  the  explanation  is  partly  found  in  the  fact  that  Luther 
was  able  by  his  comprehensive  and  fusing  mind  to  make 
it  so.  Gower  and  Langlande  were  contemporary  with 
Chaucer,  but  neither  had  the  ability  to  do  what  Chaucer 
did — to  transform  local  or  provincial  English  into  the 
great  Midland  speech  of  the  fourteenth  century — the 
national  speech  of  Elizabethan  England. 


54  LITEBATURE 

Then,  there  is  The  World  Literature,  racial  and  inter 
national  literature,  cosmopolitan  and  universal — liter- 
ature proper,  unrestricted  by  local  or  national  bounds, 
and  finding  its  home  wherever  truth  is  recorded  in  forms 
of  imagination  and  taste  for  general  ends.  What  we 
call  Comparative  Literature  is  but  another  name  for  this, 
wherever  there  exists  that  unity  of  idea,  spirit  and  aim 
that  reduces  all  differences  to  a  minimum  and  magnifies 
the  essential  elements  found  in  all. 

We  speak  of  Isothermal  Lines  in  the  study  of  the 
world's  Meteorology — lines  of  similar  temperature  in 
countries  widely  separated  in  space  and  time.  There 
are  isothermal  lines  in  the  literary  world — lines  of  mental 
similarity  as  visible  in  the  literary  product  of  different 
peoples,  so  as  to  bring  the  most  distant  authors  into  near- 
ness and  sympathy. 

In  that  invaluable  work  entitled,  Eckerman's  ^^Con- 
versations with  Goethe"  (Gespriiche  mit  Goethe),  we 
read — '^The  epoch  of  World  Literature  is  at  hand,  and 
each  one  must  do  what  he  can  to  hasten  its  approach." 
Goethe  himself  was  a  notable  example  of  a  world -author, 
as  distinct  from  a  local  or  even  a  national  author.  He 
was  more  than  German.  He  was  a  man  of  the  race,  pen- 
ning the  thoughts  of  the  people  and  for  the  people.  So 
Dante  and  Shakespeare  and  Milton  and  Cervantes  and 
Aristotle  and  Plato  and  Emerson.  These  writers  are 
above  the  limits  of  community  and  nation,  and  find 
their  constituency  out  among  the  people  for  whom  they 
labor.  They  are,  in  an  eminent  sense,  writers  at  large, 
having  to  do  with  those  generic  and  germinal  ideas 
that  represent  the  best  thought  of  the  world  and  com- 
pass the  most  comprehensive  ends. 

Greek  Literature,  truly  national  as  it  was,  and,  in  a 


I 


THE  8C0PE   OF  LITERATURE  55 

sense,  boastful  of  its  specific  character  and  type,  was  in 
its  prime  a  world  literature,  and  is  so  still,  in  the  fact 
that  it  embodies  the  genius  and  essential  principle  of  all 
literature.  We  are  living  in  the  days  of  Literary  Eeci- 
procity.  Nations  are  affecting  each  other  in  literature 
as  never  before;  touching  one  another  at  all  possible 
points  of  contact,  just  as  they  are  doing  in  commerce  and 
politics  and  the  various  industrial  activities.  Demogeot, 
in  his  '^ History  of  French  Literature,"  has  shown  at 
length  this  influence  as  applied  to  the  relations  of  Italy, 
Spain  and  England  to  France,  while  English  Literature 
evinces,  in  a  marked  degree,  as  does  English  Civiliza- 
tion, this  interaction  of  authors  and  authorship. 

Just  here,  indeed,  lies  one  of  the  tests  of  the  rank  and 
potency  of  any  separate  national  literature — \dz.,  in  the 
presence  in  it  or  absence  from  it  of  these  universal  and 
universalizing  qualities.  Certain  Literatures,  as  certain 
Languages,  seem  to  be  the  common  property  of  the 
world  and  the  media  for  the  interchange  of  general 
truth.  Such  was  the  Greek  among  the  older  literatures, 
and  such  has  been  the  French  on  the  Continent  of 
Europe,  while  the  German  and  the  English  in  more 
recent  years  have  taken  on  more  and  more  of  this  uni- 
versal form. 

Mental  action,  spiritual  movement  and  literary  ex- 
pression are  based  on  the  same  fundamental  laws  in  all 
nations,  and  that  author  or  separate  literature  that  best 
discusses,  interprets  and  reveals  these  impulses  and 
ideas,  approximates  the  nearest  to  the  type  of  universal- 
ity. The  comparison  in  English  Letters  of  such  authors 
as  Shakespeare  and  Sidney  or  Tennyson  and  Tupper  will 
reveal  the  difference  between  universality  in  literature 
and  local  range  and  art.     ' '  We  are  to  search  in  Litera- 


56  LITEBATUBE 

ture, ' '  says  one,  '  ^  for  the  conceptions  which  have  proved 
themselves  vital  and  to  study  the  expressions  given  to 
these  whenever  they  have  assumed  final  and  adequate 
form.  It  is  to  follow  in  peoples  the  growth  of  expres- 
sions needing  expression  and  to  endeavor  to  make  out 
that  in  literature  which  constitutes  the  catholic  faith. ' ' 

There  is,  we  may  say,  a  relativity  of  literature  as  well 
as  of  knowledge  in  general,  and  he  secures  the  largest 
result  and  profit  who,  as  a  student  of  letters,  discusses 
the  various  features  and  forms  of  this  relativity  and  suc- 
ceeds in  revealing  them  to  others.  The  study  of  what  a 
recent  American  critic  calls  ''The  Border  Land  of  Lit- 
erature ' '  is  quite  as  important  as  the  study  of  literature 
itself.  In  fact,  the  study  of  the  one  involves  that  of  the 
other. 

"We  are  now  prepared  for  a  more  extended  and  specific 
discussion  of  these  varied  relations  and  afl&nities  of  liter- 
ature. Such  a  discussion  may  be  best  conducted  by 
noting  in  what  way  Literature  touches  and  is  affected  by 
the  other  great  departments  of  human  thought  and  effort. 

LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE 

A  priori,  there  would  seem  to  be  little  or  no  connec- 
tion between  these  two  branches  of  study,  while  the 
history  of  opinion  goes  far  to  confirm  such  a  presup- 
position. If  we  revert  to  the  definition  already  given 
of  Literature,  it  would  appear  that  there  are  certain 
terms  and  elements  included  apparently  at  variance 
with  our  traditional  idea  of  the  nature  and  end  of 
science.  Such  terms  as  taste,  imagination  and  sensi- 
bility are  of  this  character.  The  province  of  liter- 
ature as  untechnical  would  seem  to  involve  a  feature  of 
difference  as,  also,  its  ultimate  purpose  to  interest  and 


THE  SCOPE  OF  LITEBATTJRE  57 

impress  rather  than  to  instruct,  and  to  reach  the  average 
or  general  mind  rather  than  the  professional  or  even  the 
scholarly  classes.  There  is  here  an  apparent  contrariety 
of  content,  method,  outlook  and  aim  ;  enough,  at  least, 
to  form  a  valid  explanation  of  that  idea  of  the  mutual 
exclusion  of  Science  and  Literature  which  still  so  largely 
obtains.  Thus,  Pater  writes,  ''In  Science,  we  have  a 
literary  domain  where  the  imagination  may  be  thought 
to  be  always  an  intruder"  in  which  language  the  critic, 
while  speaking  of  the  imagination  as  an  ''intruder," 
also  calls  the  domain  into  which  it  intrudes  "literary." 
So  Coleridge,  "A  poem  is  a  species  of  composition  op- 
posed to  Science  as  having  intellectual  pleasure  for  its 
ends, ' '  the  thought  of  our  critic  being  that  the  two  de- 
partments differ  radically  in  their  ultimate  purpose — 
that  of  Science  being  intellectual  discipline  and  profit 
rather  than  pleasure.  So  Matthew  Arnold,  in  his  note- 
worthy paper,  on  "Literature  and  Science,"  is  at  special 
pains  to  teach  that  Literature  as  especially  exemplified 
in  classical  culture  is  essentially  different  from  and  supe- 
rior to  what  is  known  as  Science. 

So  Cardinal  Newman  states  it  by  a  series  of  contrasts 
— "Science  has  to  do  with  things;  literature  with 
thoughts  ;  science  uses  words  as  symbols,  but  literature 
uses  language  in  its  full  compass."  The  old  discussion 
as  to  Nominalism  and  Realism  was  simply  this  spirited 
controversy  as  to  the  comparative  value  of  Words  and 
Things,  of  the  Humanities  and  Utilities,  of  Literature 
and  Science.  When  Principal  Shairp  suggestingly  asks, 
"Will  Science  Put  Out  Poetry,"  altho  he  is  careful  to 
answer  it  in  the  negative,  he  evinces  by  the  very  ques- 
tion the  current  view  as  to  the  mutual  antagonism  of  the 
two. 


58  LITERATURE 

Hence,  it  is  interesting,  in  the  light  of  this  a  priori 
variance  and  the  historical  confirmation  of  it,  to  note  a 
tendency  in  later  critical  opinion  to  magnify  the  elements 
of  relationship.  Lanier,  in  his  '^Development  of  the 
English  1^0 vel, ' '  emphasizes  the  fact  that  Science,  in  one 
of  its  forms,  at  least,  that  is,  Music,  and  the  Novel,  ''  took 
their  rise  at  the  same  time,"  while  he  quaintly  calls 
''Science  the  quartermaster  and  commissary  of  Poetry," 
furnishing  rich  stores  of  material,  as  he  would  say,  for 
the  imagination  to  appropriate  and  transmute  into  liter- 
ary form.  So  careful  a  critic  as  Devey  goes  so  far  as  to 
say  that  "Shakespeare  and  his  contemporaries  preceded, 
if  they  did  not  prepare  the  way  for,  those  scientific  dis- 
coveries which  culminated  in  Newton." 

An  examination  of  some  of  these  afl&nities,  therefore, 
will  be  of  interest  and  all  the  more  striking  because  of 
the  conceded  difference  at  various  points  between  the 
literary  and  the  scientific. 

1.  "We  note  that  there  is  possible  and  desirable  a  Scien- 
tific Method  in  Literature, — a  method  in  fact  essential  to 
the  obtaining  of  proper  results  within  literary  realms. 
By  this  it  is  meant  that  there  is  such  a  thing  in  litera- 
ture as  the  principle  of  observation  and  experiment, — the 
investigation  and  classification  of  phenomena,  the  only 
difference  being  that  these  phenomena  are  literary  rather 
than   scientific,    immaterial  rather  than  material  and 
tangible.      The    method,    however,    is    the  same,    and 
applied,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  in  the  same  way.  I 
The  great  method  of  induction  which  Bacon  so  earlyl 
applied  to  English  Philosophy,  and  which  is  the  govern- 1 
ing  method  in  Science,  is  the  method  that  now  obtains* 
in  Literature — the  gathering  and  grouping  of  literary ' 


THE  SCOPE  OF  LITERATURE  59 

facts  and  data  with  the  final  purpose  of  reaching  through 
a  broad  generalization  some  essential  literary  laws. 
What  Newton  would  call  Literary  Principia  are  thus 
reached  through  Literary  Induction.  In  fact,  one  of  the 
main  forms  of  literary  advance  is  seen  just  here  in  this 
Novum  Organum  in  Letters — this  substitution  of  prin- 
ciples for  precepts,  of  fundamental  laws  for  facts  and 
data,  of  induction  for  mere  acquisition  and  accumulation 
and  statement. 

There  is,  therefore,  a  Science  of  Literature  as  much  as 
there  is  a  Science  of  Astronomy  or  Physics.  There  is 
not  only  what  has  been  called  a  '  ^  Scientific  Movement 
and  Literature,"  but  a  Scientific  Movement  in  Litera- 
ture, by  which  the  student  is  enabled  to  secure,  tabulate 
and  utilize  his  facts  for  some  higher  end  than  the  facts 
themselves.  In  this  respect,  and  to  this  extent,  the 
study  of  literature  must  be  scientific — a  sincere,  patient 
and  thorough  investigation  of  phenomena,  while  it  must 
be  conceded  that  Modern  Science  has  been  of  invaluable 
benefit  to  Literature,  because  insisting  that  its  concep- 
tions, processes  and  statements  shall  be  more  and  more 
definite,  as  definite  as  they  can  consistently  be  within  a 
province  in  which  the  imagination  as  well  as  the  judg- 
ment enters.  Literature  to  be  truly  scientific  must  be 
concise  and  precise,  clear  and  pronounced,  sure  of  its 
ground,  of  its  liberty  and  its  limits,  and  never  become 
unscientific  in  the  sense  of  being  vague  and  visionary, 
just  because  it  includes  a  poetic  element  and  has  a  wider 
range  than  Physical  Science. 

2.  It  may  be  further  noted,  that  some  of  the  Forms  of 
Literature  are,  in  the  main.  Scientific  Forms.  If  we  re- 
duce matters  to  their  last  analysis,  it  may  be  said  of 


60  LITEBATURE 

Prose,  as  distinguished  from  Poetry,  that  it  is  the  scien- 
tific form  of  Literature.  Of  certain  forms  of  prose,  such 
as  the  philosophic  and  critical,  this  is  signally  true. 
The  very  phrase — literary  criticism — involves  this  truth. 
Matthew  Arnold's  ^'Essays  in  Criticism"  are  literature 
in  scientific  form,  as  are  De  Quincey's  philosophic  essays. 
Coleridge  is  a  literary  writer  in  a  scientific  form.  Even 
his  studies  of  Shakespeare  are  of  this  character. 

While  this  feature  is  not  so  prominent  and  should  not 
be  in  narrative,  descriptive  and  forensic  prose — in  such 
writers  as  Irving  and  Hawthorne  and  Burke,  all  prose, 
as  such,  is  didactic  and,  to  that  degree,  scientific  in  form. 
Even  Fiction,  the  most  unscientific  literature  in  its  char- 
acter, is  no  exception  to  this  principle,  in  the  domain  of 
the  great  historical,  political,  philosophical  and  ethical 
novels.  The  novel  of  purpose,  so-called,  is  essentially 
scientific  in  its  form.  We  speak  of  science  as  experi- 
mental. Is  it  not  a  little  striking  that  the  latest  form  of 
fiction  is  the  Experimental  Novel  of  the  school  of  Zola  ! 
It  is  reserved  for  Fiction,  the  characteristically  universal 
form  of  literature,  to  illustrate  what  is  now  known  as, 
Eealism  in  Letters,  which  is  simply  another  name  for  the 
scientific  in  letters. 

Even  Poetry,  in  its  didactic  sense,  as  in  Pope  and 
Horace,  Lucretius'  '^De  Eerum  Natura"  and  Vergil's 
Eclogues,  is  scientific  in  form,  the  drama  itself  illustrating 
the  principle  in  the  great  Historical  Plays  of  Literature. 
In  imaginative  discourse,  in  the  great  historic  debates  of 
Literature,  as  recorded  for  us,  we  have  the  most  fitting 
example  of  the  literary  and  the  scientific  in  unison,  and 
so  conjoined  as  to  make  it  impossible  to  dissever  them. 

3.  Science  furnishes  to  Literature  literary  material. 


THE  SCOPE   OF  LITEBATUBE  61 

There  is  a  Materia  Literaria  as  well  as  a  Materia  Medica. 
A  study  of  the  amount  and  character  of  such  material 
furnished  to  Literature  by  Science  will  well  repay  the 
student,  and,  if  we  mistake  not,  be  as  surprising  as  it  is 
repaying. 

So  true  is  this  relation  of  indebtedness,  that  we  have 
the  apparently  contradictory  expression — the  Scientific 
Imagination,  as  distinct  from  the  Poetic,  and,  as  we  shall 
see  in  the  sequel,  distinct  from  the  Philosophical  and 
Historical.  The  combination  is  most  suggestive,  imply- 
ing the  very  truth  we  are  aiming  to  enforce,  that  there  is 
in  Science  food  for  the  imagination — a  place  for  the  ex- 
ercise of  the  distinctly  literary  function. 

The  most  striking  proof  of  this  perhaps  is  found  in  the 
material  opened  to  Literature  from  the  realm  of  Physical 
Phenomena — from  the  World  of  Nature.  Dr.  Shairp, 
in  his  "Poetic  Interpretation  of  Nature,"  dwells  at 
length  on  this  indebtedness  of  letters  to  the  external 
world,  referring  to  nature  as  one  of  the  Sources  of  Poetry; 
discussing  the  different  ways  in  which  scientific  truth  and 
discovery  may  be  said  to  modify  Poetry,  and,  by  way  of 
concrete  example,  showing  how  the  different  poets,  such 
as  Lucretius  and  Vergil  and  Chaucer  and  Milton  and 
Burns,  have  embodied  in  their  verse  the  literary  material 
gathered  from  such  a  source.  He  speaks  of  the  "noble 
earth  and  skies  as  the  storehouse  from  which  imagination 
furnishes  herself  with  her  earliest  forms."  Professor 
Dowden,  in  referring  to  the  same  line  of  thought,  defin- 
itely indicates  three  or  four  particulars  in  which  the  nat- 
ural world  feeds  the  imagination — in  the  vastness  of  the 
universe  and  of  the  agencies  at  work  in  it ;  in  the  idea 
of  law  ;  in  the  idea  of  totality,  unity  in  universality,  and 
in  that  of  force  as  an  ultimate  principle. 


62  LITEBATTJBE 

If  we  reflect  for  a  moment,  we  shall  see,  that,  in  these 
and  kindred  external  phenomena,  poetry  especially  finds 
its  food — it  being  noticeable  that  Scientific  or  Physical 
truth  would  seem  to  be  more  closely  identified,  at  this 
point,  with  poetry  than  with  prose,  so  that  Coleridge's 
view  as  to  their  mutual  exclusiveness  must  be  modified. 

The  fact  is  that  all  the  elements  of  poetic  sublimity  are 
thus  furnished  in  these  all  comprehensive  ideas  of  im- 
mensity ;  of  power  j  of  the  serene  and  silent  operation  of 
law,  and  of  all  the  agencies  and  movements  of  the  uni- 
verse in  unison.  There  is  moral  sublimity,  here,  as  well 
as  physical,  and  that  same  feeling  is  induced  by  them  as 
that  to  which  the  philosopher  Kant  refers  when  he  speaks 
of  the  supreme  majesty  of  the  heavens  on  a  starry  night, 
and  of  the  moral  law.  The  very  essence  of  poetry  is  here, 
as  we  have  it  in  Coleridge's  ''Mont  Blanc,"  or  "Hymn 
Before  Sunrise  in  the  Yale  of  Chamouui";  in  Byron's 
' '  Apostrophe  to  the  Ocean  " ;  in  Shelley' s  ' '  Prometheus 
Unbound";  in  Dante's  "Inferno";  in  Byron's  "Cain"; 
in  Milton's  Epics,  and,  in  fine,  in  all  the  great  master- 
pieces of  literature  in  prose  and  verse.  If  the  ' '  unde- 
vout  astronomer  is  mad,"  the  unimaginative  or  unpoetic 
astronomer  is  doubly  so.  The  earth  is  merely  his  point 
of  view  from  which  to  study  celestial  phenomena.  The 
" Mecanique  Celeste"  is  far  more  than  a  Mecanique.  It 
is  instinct  with  force  and  soul  and  spiritual  life.  Kepler 
at  work  in  the  discovery  of  his  great  planetary  laws  was 
far  more  than  an  astronomer.  He  was  a  seer  and  poet 
as  well,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  feeling  induced 
by  the  anticipated  and  realized  success  of  his  work  was 
well-nigh  overwhelming.  The  great  movements  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  through  space  are  in  themselves  sub- 
lime. 


THE  SCOPE  OF  LITERATURE  63 

Those  great  cosmical  ideas  that  Newton  and  Coperni- 
cus and  Galileo  entertained  lie  hard  by  the  essential 
ideas  of  literature  as  expressed  in  poetry.  Humboldt's 
'^Cosmos"  is  a  book  that  required  a  poetic  imagination 
to  write  it,  as  it  requires  such  an  imagination  to  read  it, 
while  even  the  abstruse  processes  of  scientific  investiga- 
tion through  which  physicists  and  astronomers  go  are 
not  sufficient  to  prevent,  however  much  they  may  modify 
and  hinder,  the  free  play  of  the  mind.  The  statement 
of  Shairp,  '^  that  it  is  not  possible  to  combine  imaginative 
contemplation  and  scientific  investigation  at  the  same 
time  and  in  one  mental  act ' '  is  not  theoretically  or  his- 
torically true.  Certainly,  it  is  not  true  in  the  study  of 
the  astronomer,  nor  even  in  that  of  the  mathematician, 
where  he  is  obliged  to  take  the  infinities  into  his  calcula- 
tions, and  keep  his  imagination  on  the  stretch  at  every 
point  along  the  line  of  his  inquiry.  Newton  and  Mitchell, 
as  astronomers,  thus  worked ;  Michael  Faraday,  as  a 
chemist,  thus  worked  ;  Hugh  Miller,  as  a  geologist,  thus 
worked ;  Linnaeus,  Linacre  and  Cuvier,  as  botanists, 
thus  worked.  Of  Faraday,  Burke  writes — ''that  Nature 
and  her  contemplation  produced  in  him  a  kind  of  spir- 
itual exaltation,  and,  like  the  poet,  he  continuously 
reached  that  point  of  emotion  which  produces  poetic 
creation."  In  scientists  of  inferior  mind  and  narrow 
reach  there  is  undoubtedly  this  irreconcilable  conflict 
between  scientific  power  of  analysis  and  synthesis  and 
anything  like  literary  ideal  and  work,  but  not  so  in  those 
master  men  where  all  the  powers  of  the  mind  work  in 
harmony,  and  truth  and  the  world  are  viewed  in  their 
unity  and  totality. 

There  is  a  dry-as-dust  science  as  there  is  a  dry-as-dust 
philosophy,  and  it  goes  without  sajdng  that  in  those  who 


64  LITERATURE 

represent  it  imagination  has  no  place  or  function.  ''I 
do  not  know,"  writes  Vinet,  ^'how  it  would  be  possible 
to  be  scientific  and  yet  unlettered.  We  shall  not  find 
that  any  man  and,  especially,  of  the  first  rank  in  science, 
has  been  absolutely  in  this  condition,  while  we  often  find 
scientific  celebrities  adorned  by  great  literary  superi- 
ority." 

In  addition  to  the  names  already  cited  in  proof  of  this, 
there  might  be  mentioned  those  of  Lyell,  Sir  William 
Herschel,  Audubon,  and  the  more  modern  names  of 
Tyndall,  Huxley,  Sir  Eobert  Ball  and  our  American 
Hardy,  the  Mathematician,  Poet  and  Novelist.  Mr. 
Pater  enunciates  a  very  important  principle  at  this  point 
when  he  says :  ''The  functions  of  literature  reduce  them- 
selves in  Science  to  the  transcribing  of  fact.  Yet  here 
the  writer's  sense  of  fact  will  take  the  place  of  fact: 
just  as  the  writer's  (scientist's)  aim  comes  to  be  the 
transcribing  not  of  mere  fact  but  of  his  sense  of  it,  he 
becomes  an  artist."  So  we  may  say  that  matter-of-fact, 
technical  scientists  stop  with  the  fact ;  literary  scientists 
give  us,  also,  their  sense  or  their  interpretation  of  the 
fact.  Prof.  Guyot,  in  such  a  work  as  ' '  The  Earth  and 
Man,"  writes  not  only  as  a  geologist  but  as  an  author,  giv- 
ing us  geological  facts  in  their  relation  to  man,  and,  thus, 
vitalizing  them.  Prof.  Drummond  has  written  as  a  sci- 
entist and  an  author  in  his  ''Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual 
World."  There  is  Natural  Law  in  the  Literary  world, 
and  it  is  one  of  the  prime  functions  of  the  student  of 
letters  to  interpret  and  apply  it. 

"One  of  the  characteristics  of  World  Literature," 
says  Possnett,  ' '  is  the  rise  of  new  esthetic  appreciations 
of  physical  nature  and  its  relations  to  man.  Popular 
life  and  the  life  of  nature  are  the  only  two  fountains  of 


THE  SCOPE  OF  LITEBATUBE  65 

literary  inspiration."  Here  we  see  the  close  connection 
of  the  scientist  or  naturalist  and  the  author,  and  the  pos- 
sibility of  so  interpreting  each  that  they  shall  not  be 
made  to  exclude  but  to  explain  and  exalt  one  another. 

Literature,  and,  especially,  English  literature,  is  nota- 
bly rich  on  this  naturalistic  side,  not  only  in  such  scien- 
tific poems  as  Darwin' s  ' '  Botanic  Garden, ' '  and  Fletcher' s 
''Purple  Island,"  but,  especially,  in  those  great  descrip- 
tive writers  who  have  written  in  a  literary  way  on  topics 
more  or  less  within  the  region  of  physical  phenomena — 
as  Chaucer  and  Milton  and  Thomson  and  Burns  and  Col- 
lins and  Gray  and  Goldsmith  and  Cowper  and  Words- 
worth and  Whittier,  while  even  such  authors  as  Shake- 
speare and  Spenser  and  Browning  and  Tennyson  are  by 
no  means  devoid  of  it.  It  is  thus  that  Bryant  fittingly 
sings : 

"To  him  who  in  the  love  of  nature 

Holds  communion  with  her  visible  forms 

She  speaks  a  various  language." 

That  language  has  been  interpreted  from  the  days  of 
Chaucer  down,  beginning  before  Science  began,  and  util- 
izing the  facts  of  Science  when  appearing  so  as  to  awaken 
new  interest  and  life.  There  is  what  may  be  called  the 
Natural  Method  in  Literature — that  of  determination 
and  classification,  as  expressed  in  history,  fiction  and 
poetry.  It  is  of  high  importance,  as  we  view  it,  to  press 
this  relationship  of  Literature  and  Science,  partly,  to  se- 
cure a  correct  study  of  each,  and,  also,  to  exhibit  the  unity 
of  truth. 

These  two  great  fields  of  human  activity  can  not  be 
divorced,  as  some  have  divorced  them,  without  irreparable 
harm  to  each.  Mr.  Huxley  is  right,  for  example,  when 
he  teUs  us  that  literary  men  or  the  classicists  so  called 


66  LITEBATUEE 

can  not  claim  a  monopoly  of  the  Eevival  of  Learning  in 
the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries ;  that  there  was  a 
revival  of  science  as  well  as  of  classicism  ;  of  the  Utilities 
as  well  as  of  the  Divinities  and  Humanities  ;  and  he  might 
have  added,  that,  from  the  Elizabethan  era  down  to  our 
day,  what  Draper  calls,  ''The  Intellectual  Development 
of  Europe ' '  has  been  both  scientific  and  literary,  and 
these,  more  or  less  in  unison.  All  this  is  true,  while  it 
is,  also,  true  that  Science  and  Literature  do  not  cover 
precisely  the  same  territory.  Each  has  its  own  province 
and  its  own  purpose  in  the  world  of  mind.  The  one 
deals,  mainly,  with  visible  phenomena,  and  the  other, 
with  invisible  ;  the  one  has,  mainly,  in  view  the  material 
and  industrial  progress  of  the  race  through  the  media  of 
discovery  and  invention  and  the  better  understanding  of 
the  external  universe ;  the  other,  has,  mainly,  before  it 
the  interpretation  of  national  thought  and  taste ;  the 
method  of  the  one  is  more  analytic  and  formal  than  that 
of  the  other,  and  decided  ability  in  the  one  is  possible 
quite  apart  from  a  commensurate  talent  in  the  other. 
These  are  differences  of  province,  function  and  pur- 
pose and  are  valid  differences.  Prof.  Huxley  is,  in  this 
respect,  wrong  when  he  states,  "  that  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  real  culture  an  exclusively  scientific  education 
is  at  least  as  effectual  as  an  exclusively  literary  educa- 
tion. ' '  This  is  wrong  in  theory  and  fact,  save  as  we  give 
to  the  word,  culture,  an  entirely  different  sense  from  that 
in  which  it  is  commonly  used  by  literary  critics,  and  this 
is  precisely  what  Mr.  Huxley  does,  in  a  sense,  begging 
the  question  by  defining  culture,  at  the  outset,  in  terms 
of  science.  Still,  it  is  to  be  urged,  that,  in  so  far  as  there 
is  relationship  between  these  two  departments  and  prov- 
inces, such  relationship  is  to  be  acknowledged  and  em- 


TRE  SCOPE  OF  LITEBATUBE  67 

phasized  for  the  good  of  each,  just  as  later  on  we  shall 
see  that  the  relation  of  Literature  to  Philosophy  and 
Life  is  to  be  enforced. 

"When  Milton  says  that  Poetry  is  '^sensuous"  he 
means  that  it  has  to  do  in  part  with  the  senses,  the  sen- 
sible, tangible,  visible,  physical  world,  and  fails  of  its 
mission  if  it  ignore  this  side  of  its  vocation  in  exclusive 
attention  to  the  unseen  and  spiritual. 

The  special  caution  of  which  the  writer  stands  in  need 
is,  that  the  scientific  should  not  be  allowed  to  have  any- 
thing more  than  its  normal  influence  in  literary  style 
and  should  not  be  allowed  to  trespass  where  there  should 
be  no  admission. 

This  caution  may  be  included  in  the  word.  Technical- 
ity. Literature,  as  a  form  or  method,  as  our  definition 
insists,  is  untechnical,  as  seeking  to  reach  the  general 
mind.  The  formal  processes  of  physical  science,  if 
allowed  to  have  place  in  letters  as  in  science  proper, 
would  go  far  to  rid  it  of  its  spirituality  and  to  defeat  its 
ultimate  aim.  There  may  be  a  scientific  method  in  lit- 
erature, as  we  have  seen,  in  the  sense  of  gathering  liter- 
ary phenomena  and  inducing  from  them  literary  laws, 
and  in  the  further  sense  of  securing  definiteness  to  liter- 
ary conceptions  and  statements,  but  not  in  the  sense  of  a 
bald,  analytic  process,  or  of  invariable  formulae  mathe- 
matically applied.  This  would  reduce  all  Poetry  to 
Prose,  and  all  Prose  to  the  level  of  the  pedantic  and  text- 
ual. Keats  was  exasperated  with  Newton  for  reducing 
the  colors  of  the  rainbow  to  a  prism — that  is,  for  reducing 
poetry  to  fact. 

Poetry  and  fact.  Literature  and  Science  may  coexist 
and  interact  without  provoking  any  such  hostile  com- 
ment, when  each  is  allowed  to  be  supreme  in  its  own 


68  LITEBATUBE 

sphere,  and  to  affect  each  other  only  in  that  large  middle 
ground  to  which  each  has  access  and  where  they  may 
meet  and  modify  each  other. 

An  English  critic  has  told  us  that  if  Byron's  poetic 
genius  could  be  fused  with  Faraday's  scientific  genius, 
the  result  would  be  a  poem  ''  for  which  the  world  waits," 
which  is  as  much  as  to  say,  that  the  present  relations  of 
Literature  and  Science  are  but  approximate,  and  that 
when  such  relations  are  fully  realized.  Literature  will 
take  on  a  new  form  and  a  higher  function,  and  another 
Golden  Age  of  English  Letters  be  ushered  in. 


CHAPTER  FTYB 
LITERATURE   AND    PHILOSOPHY 

We  enter  here  upon  a  field  of  inquiry  full  of  fertile 
suggestion,  and  one  which,  as  yet,  has  been  but  partially 
traversed  by  the  students  either  of  philosophy  or  litera- 
ture. While  increasing  attention  is  given  to  each  of 
these  departments  in  its  separate  area  and  function,  by 
no  means  the  latest  word  has,  as  yet,  been  said  upon  the 
equally  important  topic  of  their  relations  and  mutual 
dependence. 

One  of  the  earliest  writers  of  Modern  England  to  call 
special  attention  thereto  was  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  in 
his  '^  Philosophy  of  Style,"  his  opinions  and  conclusions 
being  especially  valuable  in  that  he  stands  as  an  acknowl- 
edged representative  in  each  of  these  spheres  of  effort. 
So,  Shairp  and  Symonds  and  Stephens  and  Knight  and 
Dowden,  in  England,  have  done  similar  work,  as,  also, 
Schlegel,  in  Germany,  and  Vinet,  in  France,  have  done, 
while  President  Bascom,  of  our  own  country,  has  at- 
tempted a  corresponding  form  of  literary  discussion  in 
his  '' Philosophy  of  Literature."  In  the  view  that  we 
shall  take  of  these  two  related  departments  we  shall  not 
use  the  term,  Philosophy,  in  its  most  scholastic  and 
formal  sense,  as  a  '' metaphysical  technique, "  but  rather 
in  the  well-understood  and  more  general  and  equally 
valid  sense,  of  a  study  of  the  human  mind — of  the  facul- 
ties which  it  involves — the  laws  which  govern  mental 
movements,  and  the  methods  and  processes  most  appar- 


70  LITJEBATUBE 

ent  in  all  normal  mental  action.  Philosophy,  in  this 
sense,  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  study  of  any  and 
everything  that  is  characteristically  intellectual^the 
study  of  mentality  wherever  it  expresses  itself — in  phi- 
losophy proper,  in  science  or  art  or  literature.  Here, 
we  come  to  the  first  and  most  important  point  of  contact 
between  the  two  departments. 

1,  As  Philosophy  is  what  Max  Miiller  would  call,  The 
Science  of  Thought,  Literature,  at  this  point,  is  The 
Science  of  the  Expression  of  Thought — or,  more  defi- 
nitely, that  thought  itself  in  expressed  and  visible  form. 
Hence,  we  see,  that,  in  the  last  analysis  of  each,  we 
come  to  Thought  as  the  fundamental  factor,  the  essence 
of  each.  If  we  say  Philosophy  is  a  study  of  Mind  and 
Mental  action,  so  is  Literature,  whatever  may  be  the 
different  emphasis  which  they  respectively  place  upon 
the  special  processes  or  modes  of  such  study. 

Irreparable  harm  has  already  been  done  to  Letters  by 
insisting  that  the  intellectual  principle  is  not  present  in 
them  in  any  vital  and  active  sense — not  even  in  Prose 
Literature — while  not  found,  we  are  told,  in  poetry  by 
the  necessary  laws  that  obtain  in  each.  Even  Plato  saw 
no  possible  compatibility  between  Poetry  and  Philos- 
ophy, and,  therefore,  excluded  it  from  his  Ideal  Eepublic. 
Nor  is  such  exclusion  or  undervaluation  confined  to 
Plato,  but  finds  far  too  much  endorsement  among  au- 
thors themselves  and  nations  and  peoples  who  are  accept- 
ed as  true  exponents  of  literature- 
It  is  with  this  thought  in  mind  that  Mr.  Emerson 
criticizes  English  Literature  as  being  local  in  type  rather 
than  spacious — that  is,  philosophical.  ''The  English 
shrink,"    he  says,    ''from  a  generalization,"    and    he 


LITERATURE  AND  PHILOSOPEY  71 

quotes  against  them  Bacon's  famous  declaration  that, 
"they  do  not  look  abroad  into  universality,"  which  is 
to  say,  that  they  do  not  philosophize  as  authors  but  par- 
ticularize as  pedants.  He  condemns  Hume  and  Johnson 
and  Hallam  and  Macaulay  as  unphilosophic  or  non- 
philosophic;  speaks  of  Dickens  and  Bulwer  and  Thack- 
eray as  writing  "London  tracts,"  while  even  of  Cole- 
ridge he  adds  "the  Englishman  was  too  strong  for  the 
philosopher."  This  is  plain  language  and,  at  times, 
extreme,  but  contains  far  too  much  of  substantive  truth 
to  be  unnoticed  by  any  one  who  is  aiming  to  give  a  true 
account  of  literary  progress  in  England  and  correct  its 
erroneous  tendency. 

Of  light  literature  th§re  will  always  be  enough,  and 
for  some  degree  of  it  there  will  always  be  a  valid  place, 
by  way  of  pastime  and  mental  recreation,  but  breadth 
and  depth  and  thoroughness  are  qualities  that  do  not 
appear  at  sight  and  at  call,  but  are  the  result  of  force  of 
thought  and  force  of  will,  and  are  as  desirable  as  they 
are  difficult  of  securing.  It  is  precisely  this  that  Yinet 
has  in  mind  as  he  writes — "There  is  a  natural  contiguity 
between  Philosophy  and  Literature.  A  great  literary 
epoch  will  always  be  a  thoughtful  one.  The  thought 
may  not  always  assume  a  philosophic  form,  but  it  will 
always  possess  a  philosophic  substance.  A  quite  liter- 
ary age  can  not  be  anti-philosophical,"  can  not  be,  we 
may  add,  "  unphilosophical, "  and  can  not  be  for  the 
good  reason  given — that  thought  is  dominant  in  each, 
even  tho  in  the  one  it  may  be  more  conspicuously  so 
than  in  the  other.  One  of  the  highest  praises  that  can 
be  given  to  Philosophy  is,  that  it  is  organically  connected 
with  all  the  branches  of  high  learning  and,  therefore, 
organically  connected  with  the  best  Literature. 


72  LITEBATJJBE 

2.  We  notice,  further,  that  in  all  true  Literary  process 
there  is  a  Philosophic  Method — that  of  interpretation 
and  discussion,  deductively  and  inductively  applied,  a 
study  of  causes  and  effects  in  literary  product ;  of  gov- 
erning principles  and  great  historic  tendencies  as  re- 
vealed in  letters  ;  of  the  significance  of  literature  rather 
than  its  merely  verbal  expression  ;  a  study  of  the  life 
and  substance  of  authorship.  In  a  word,  the  method  is 
introspective  and  psychological  and  widely  different,  at 
this  point,  from  the  merely  scientific  method  in  litera- 
ture, which  contents  itself  with  discerning  and  explain- 
ing the  phenomena,  the  external  features  of  literary 
life.  It  is  what  is  meant  by  literary  insight,  as  distinct 
from  mere  outlook,  possible  to  him  only  who  has  closed 
his  eyes  to  the  world  and  opened  them  fully  on  God  and 
truth  and  the  inward  being,  and  with  his  head  buried  in 
his  hands  sees  what  the  natural  eye  could  never  see. 
The  Philosophic  spirit  is  but  another  name  for  this  state 
and  process — a  profound  and  sedate  inlooking  upon  what 
lies  below  the  level  of  mere  appearances,  and  of  which 
the  apparent  is  the  faintest  indication  and  revelation. 
No  one  is  an  author  until  he  has  cultivated  and  opened 
his  inner  eye  and  seen  the  inner  light.  Nor  can  any  one 
interpret  such  authorship  aright  save  as  he  has  by  en- 
dowment or  discipline  developed  such  a  faculty.  ' '  No 
man  can  be  a  true  critic,"  says  Schlegel,  ''without  uni- 
versality of  mind,"  without,  we  may  add,  mental  pene- 
tration and  inspection.  Literary  criticism,  if  of  any 
lasting  value,  must  be  thus  philosophic  in  its  methods 
and  spirit — a  study  of  mind  as  revealed  in  language. 

Hence,  the  fact  that  what  is  called.  The  Philosophic 
or  Intellectual  Style  is  the  first  in  order  of  value,  the 
style  that  has  substance  and  body  as  well  as  artistic  form 


LITERATURE  AND  PHILOSOPHY  73 

and  beauty,  by  which  the  beautiful  itself  is  made  more 
beautiful  in  the  view  of  all  intelligent  minds.  Bacon's 
Essays  are  thus  philosophic  as  specimens  of  English 
Prose,  and  in  their  type  and  spirit  as  much  so  as  any 
distinctively  philosophic  treatise  that  he  wrote. 

The  German  author  Schopenhauer  has  uttered,  at  this 
point,  many  truths  of  permanent  value,  as  he  says — 
''Style  is  the  physiognomy  of  the  mind.  It  receives  its 
beauty  from  the  thought  it  expresses.  The  first  rule  for 
a  good  style  is,  that  the  author  should  have  something  to 
say."  He  mercilessly  satirizes  those  writers,  especially 
among  his  own  countrymen,  who  insist  upon  the  use  of 
words  for  the  words'  sake,  and  aim  to  conceal  their  pau- 
city of  thought  by  sophistry  and  false  ornament  and 
profound  verbiage.  In  other  words,  he  insists  that 
authorship  must  be  philosophical  in  the  sense  of  being 
thoughtful — full  of  thought  and  expressed  with  but  one 
ultimate  end — to  increase  the  thinking  capacity  of  him 
who  peruses  it. 

If  we  turn  to  that  series  of  ''Great  Writers"  which 
is  now  in  process  of  preparation  under  the  editorial  eye 
of  Eobertson,  we  shall  note  that  their  greatness  consists 
in  having  truth  and  thought  to  communicate,  by  reason 
of  which  they  are  widely  separated  from  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  writers  of  lesser  fame — the  small  writers,  who 
have  written  either  of  necessity  or  for  personal  ends. 

3.  It  may  further  be  noted  that  Philosophy  and  Liter- 
ature have  so  vitally  affected  each  other  along  the  lines 
of  the  historic  development  of  each  that  a  mutual  in- 
debtedness has  resulted  and  the  elements  of  resemblance 
between  the  two  been  emphasized. 

The  history  of  Greek  Literature,  for  example,  could 


74  LITERATURE 

not  be  written  apart  from  the  history  of  Greek  Philos- 
ophy. There  is  a  true  sense  in  which  at  and  after  the 
time  of  Plato  all  Greek  Literature  was  more  or  less  im- 
pressed with  the  Platonic  philosophy.  The  same  is  true, 
approximately,  of  the  influence  of  Aristotle  as  a  philos- 
opher upon  all  contemporary  and  subsequent  Greek  let- 
ters ;  true  of  Socrates,  in  his  practical  teachings ;  true, 
in  a  sense,  of  the  great  Stoic  and  Epicurean  schools,  and 
of  the  celebrated  Schoolmen  in  the  Middle  Ages,  as,  con- 
versely, their  respective  literatures  variously  affected 
the  growth  and  history  of  philosophy  itself.  Thus 
TJeberweg,  in  his  '^ History  of  Philosophy,"  writes  as  to 
Philosophy — ^'The  efforts  of  the  poetic  fancy  to  repre- 
sent to  itself  the  nature  and  development  of  things 
divine  and  human  excite  to  and  prepare  the  way  for 
philosophical  inquiry."  He  refers  to  the  influence 
of  Homer  and  Hesiod  and  the  ''Orphic  Poesies"  in 
this  direction.  The  great  Greek  Tragedians  clearly 
reflect  this  influence  in  their  dramatic  masterpieces 
which  are  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  application  of 
pagan  philosophy  to  the  interpretation  of  human  life 
and  destiny. 

This  principle  finds  a  striking  confirmation  in  Ger- 
many, in  the  philosophy  of  Leibnitz  and  his  contempo- 
raries, and  in  the  subsequent  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  while  from  the  time  of  Kant  on  through  the 
Modern  German  School,  in  the  person  of  Hegel,  espe- 
cially, it  is  equally  apparent.  The  Hegelian  philosophy 
may  be  said  to  penetrate  and  suffuse  the  literature  of 
Germany  throughout  the  opening  and  middle  years  of 
the  last  century,  and  is  still  a  potent  tho  a  waning  in- 
fluence. In  no  country  is  this  interaction  more  visible 
and  vital  than  in  France,  especially  in  the  eighteenth 


LITERATURE  AND  PHILOSOPHY  75 

century — the  age  of  Voltaire  and  Eousseau  and  the  En- 
cyclopedists, when  the  relationship  between  philosophy 
and  literature  was  so  close  that  they  may  be  said  to  have 
become  fused,  and  philosophers  wrote  literature  and  au- 
thors philosophized  in  the  same  way,  on  common  ground 
and  for  a  common  end — the  overthrow  of  truth  and 
faith.  Voltaire,  Eousseau,  Montesquieu  and  Buffon  were 
the  four  great  French  philosophers  and  authors  of  the 
time,  aided  by  Diderot  and  D'Alembert  and  Fontenelle 
and  similar  minds.  Voltaire,  the  center  and  head  of  the 
age,  author  alike  of  "Henriade"  and  ^'The  Age  of 
Louis  XIII.,"  of  such  tragedies  as  ''  Mort  de  Cesar,"  and 
of  such  discussions  as  ^' The  Philosophic  dePHistoire," 
is  the  best  representative  in  the  century  and  in  all  France 
of  this  combination  that  we  are  discussing.  So,  as  to  the 
influence  of  the  Deistic  Philosophy  of  the  eighteenth 
century  in  England  upon  English  letters,  signally  illus- 
trated in  the  writings  of  Pope,  of  the  critics,  satirists, 
novelists  and  dramatists  of  the  time,  as  in  the  specifically 
philosophical  writings  of  Bolingbroke  and  Priestly  and 
Taine.  No  better  illustration  of  the  mutual  influence  of 
philosophy  and  letters  can  be  given  in  this  eighteenth 
century  than  that  which  is  found  in  the  celebrated  His- 
torical School  of  the  period — in  the  pages  of  Hume  and 
Eobertson  and  Gibbon.  A  deistic  philosophy  begets  a 
deistic  literature  ;  a  pantheistic  philosophy,  such  as  that 
of  Spinoza,  a  pantheistic  literature  ;  a  materialistic  phi- 
losophy, a  corresponding  literature  ;  a  Christian  philos- 
ophy, such  as  that  of  Bacon  and  the  Scottish  School,  a 
Christian  literature  ;  while  it  would  be  difficult  to  state 
which  of  these,  in  any  given  age  of  eminence,  has  had 
the  larger  influence  upon  the  other.  There  have  been 
eras  in  England,  as  on  the  Continent,  distinctively  phil- 


76  LITERATURE 

osophical  or  distinctively  literary.  Even  these,  how- 
ever, are  diminishing  as  history  goes  on,  and  philosophers 
and  writers  are  working  more  and  more  on  common 
ground. 

Where  these  two  types  of  mind,  the  philosophical  and 
the  literary,  are  found  in  the  same  personality,  as  in 
Bacon  or  Hume  or  Coleridge  or  Emerson,  we  have  the 
most  fitting  exhibition  of  the  natural  influence  of  the  one 
upon  the  other,  or  rather  of  their  organic  unity. 

This  much,  however,  may  be  said,  that  the  highest 
literature  tends  to  the  philosophic  type,  as  that  philoso- 
phy is  best  expressed  which  commends  itself  to  the  good 
judgment  and  taste  of  literary  men.  Lucretius  the  critic, 
acknowledged  his  indebtedness  to  Epicurus  the  philoso- 
pher, as  Dante  did  to  Aquinas  ;  and  Spencer,  to  Plato  ; 
and  Pope,  to  Leibnitz  ;  and  Goethe,  to  Spinoza  5  and 
Emerson,  to  Plato  and  Plotinus ;  as  philosophers,  in 
turn,  have  been  quick  to  acknowledge  their  debt  to  the 
representative  authors  of  their  day.  Burt,  in  speaking 
of  such  a  relation,  remarks — 'Hhat  philosophy  owes  to 
literature  the  imaginative  and  emotive  impulse  by  which 
philosophic  truth  is  set  forth,"  while,  as  it  might  be 
added.  Literature  owes  to  philosophy  much  of  that  solid 
and  substantial  truth  which  is  to  be  set  forth  and  applied. 
As  Literature  gives  to  Philosophy  ease  and  flexibility 
and  freedom  of  movement,  and,  in  this  sense,  opens  the 
way  for  the  entrance  of  philosophy  more  effectively  into 
the  minds  of  men,  so  does  Philosophy  give  to  Letters 
those  more  stable  and  vigorous  qualities  which,  after  all, 
make  the  truth  largely  what  it  is. 

4.  A  further  principle  of  resemblance  is  seen  in  the  [ 
way  in  which  the  Imagination  is  present  as  a  faculty  in 


LITEBATXJEE  AND  PHILOSOPHY  11 

each.  We  speak  of  tlie  Historic,  Scientific  and  Poetic 
Imagination,  as  this  mental  power  is  api^lied  in  these 
respective  fields  of  inquiry.  So  we  speak  of  the  Philo- 
sophic Imagination,  in  the  sphere  of  philosophy.  It  is, 
however,  one  and  the  same  faculty  which  is  exercised 
and  one  and  the  same  mind  which  is  at  work,  nor  can 
any  too  close  discrimination  be  made  here  as  to  which 
of  these  forms  or  functions  of  the  Imagination  is  the 
superior. 

The  special  point  before  us  is,  that  the  very  phrase. 
The  Philosophic  Imagination,  involves  the  unity  of  these 
departments.  According  to  earlier  usage,  when  it  was 
held  that  the  Poetic  Imagination  was  the  only  form  of 
it,  as  illustrated  in  the  outlook  of  the  poet,  such  a  phrase 
would  have  implied  a  verbal  and  real  contradiction,  as 
if  there  could  be  any  such  element  as  strength  and  sta- 
bility in  any  office  of  our  Imaginative  power,  while  the 
existing  use  of  the  word.  Fancy,  caUs  attention  to  a 
double  function  of  this  same  faculty — a  higher  and  a 
lower,  a  wider  and  a  narrower. 

By  the  Philosophic  Imagination  then  is  meant,  the  ex- 
ercise of  this  power  on  its  more  serious  side,  as  the  great 
organic  or  constructive  faculty  of  the  soul,  the  faculty  of 
correlation  and  combination,  as  distinct  from  the  same 
faculty  on  its  poetic  or  pictorial  side.  The  eminent 
American  metaphysician,  Dr.  Wayland,  has  stated  the 
difference  between  the  poetic  and  the  philosophic  imag- 
ination in  two  or  three  suggestive  contrasts,  as  he  writes 
— ''By  the  poetical  imagination  we  form  an  indelible 
picture  which  may  be  represented  to  the  senses ;  by  the 
philosophical,  we  form  an  ideal  conception  of  some  gen- 
eral truth.  By  the  one,  we  form  images  ;  by  the  other, 
we  frame  hypotheses.     In  the  one  case,  the  conception 


78  LITEBATUBE 

is  addressed  to  the  taste ;  in  the  other,  we  appeal  to  the 
understanding.  The  design  of  the  one  is  to  give  us 
pleasure;  of  the  other,  to  enlarge  our  knowledge."  It 
is  really  the  principle  of  induction  applied  within  the 
sphere  of  the  ideal;  the  exercise,  in  the  best  sense,  of  the 
speculative  reason,  by  which  original  conceptions  and 
general  principles  are  reached. 

If  we  apply  this  to  Literature,  the  difference  may  be 
readily  seen.  The  Dantean,  Shakespearian  and  Miltonic 
imagination,  as  illustrated  in  the  '^Divine  Comedy,"  in 
'^Hamlet"  and  in  '^ Paradise  Lost,"  is  philosophic  as 
much  as  it  is  poetic.  The  conception,  in  each  case,  of 
the  epic  or  the  play  is  unique,  comprehensive  and  com- 
plex, and,  yet,  all  within  the  sphere  of  the  imagination — 
the  sphere  of  the  ideal.  So,  in  Browning's,  "Eing  and 
The  Book,"  and  in  Tennyson's  "  Idylls  of  the  King, " 
and  in  Goethe's  ''Faust."  In  such  a  philosophic  his- 
torian as  Guizot  we  see  it,  or  in  such  a  philosophic  novel- 
ist as  George  Eliot,  as  it  is  also  seen,  in  signal  form,  in 
the  construction  of  any  great  philosophic  system,  such 
as  that  of  Descartes  or  Bacon  or  Hobbes  or  Hamilton, 
where  the  highest  truths  are  set  forth  by  the  philosopher 
as  an  author. 

If,  according  to  Bacon,  ''  the  end  of  philosophy  is  the 
intuition  of  unity" — that  unity  is  grasped  and  mastered 
by  the  philosophic  imagination  in  its  best  exercise  and 
thus  brought  out  of  the  world  of  unreality  into  that  of 
reality.  We  speak  of  certain  forms  of  Philosophy,  as 
that  of  Berkely,  as  Ideal  or  Idealistic.  In  the  sense  in 
which  we  are  now  using  language,  all  Philosophy,  as 
such,  is  ideal — the  result  of  the  action  of  the  Philosophic 
Imagination — the  action  of  the  mind  in  the  realm  of  the 
ideal.     So  the  great  epics  and  masterpieces  of  Literature 


LITEBATUBE  AND  PHILOSOPHY  79 

are  tlie  product  of  the  imagination  and  the  rational 
understanding  in  joint  activity — no  masterpiece  in 
Literature  being  the  product  of  either  one  of  these  facul- 
ties acting  dissevered  from  the  other. 

The  Platonic  Philosophy  in  its  central  principle — the 
dominance  of  ideas,  was  really  a  philosophy  of  the  ideal, 
inasmuch  as  no  power  short  of  the  imagination  on  its 
philosophic  side  could  have  conceived  and  grasped  such 
ideas  and  expressed  them  in  intelligible  form. 

Mr.  Dowden,  in  his  "Studies  in  Literature,"  dis- 
cusses "The  Transcendental  Movement"  as  it  has 
affected  Literature.  This  Platonic  Philosophy  was 
transcendental  and,  because  such,  compassed  by  the 
imagination  as  philosophic  just  as  it  was  by  Emerson  and 
his  school  in  our  own  country.  Shelly  evinced  some 
features  of  it,  as  did  Wordsworth,  in  the  interpretation 
of  nature;  so.  Browning  and  Carlyle  and  Arthur  Clough 
and,  so,  the  recent  poetry  of  Edwin  Arnold. 

There  is  such  a  thing,  then,  as  Philosophy  and  Litera- 
ture as  related,  a  literary  philosophy  and  a  philosophy 
of  literature.  Literature  itself  may  be  said  to  be  a 
philosophy  of  life,  one  of  the  methods  of  interpreting  the 
human  mind  to  itself,  such  authors  as  Lucretius  and 
Cicero  and  Coleridge  and  Emerson  being  examples  of 
philosophical  litterateurs,  while  such  as  Descartes,  Male- 
branche  and  Shaftesbury  and  Berkely  and  Bacon  and 
Hobbes  and  Mill  may  be  adduced  as  examples  of  literary 
philosophers,  each  in  his  own  way  seeking  to  find  and 
explain  the  truth  and  lead  his  fellows  to  the  acceptance 
and  application  of  it. 

All  this  is  true  and,  yet.  Philosophy  and  Literature  are 
not  to  be  viewed  as  covering  precisely  the  same  ground, 
as  following  precisely  the  same  methods,  or  subserving 


80  LITEBATUBE 

in  the  world  of  thought  the  same  specific  ends.  Each 
has  its  own  sphere  and  does  its  own  work,  and  each  has 
territory  which  is  not  to  be  invaded  with  impunity  by 
the  other.  The  one  may  emphasize  some  things  that  the 
other  does  not;  may  reach  the  same  end  by  a  different 
method,  or  contemplate  some  different  ends;  may  study 
the  moral  and  mental  action  of  the  author  more  than  his 
specific  mental  product  called  literature,  and  yet,  in  the 
broader  view,  each  is  the  adjutant  of  the  other  in  the 
cause  of  truth,  so  that  to  Burt's  declaration — ''that  Lit- 
erature is  the  best  avenue  leading  to  Philosophy,"  we 
may  consistently  add,  that  Philosophy  is  the  best  avenue 
leading  to  Literature,  each  of  them  leading  to  a  highway 
wider  and  larger  than  either — to  the  open  way  of  thought 
and  truth. 

Special  need  exists  at  present,  both  in  philosophy  and 
literature,  of  pressing  this  relation  to  the  fullest.  While, 
on  the  one  hand,  philosophy  in  its  tendency  to  extreme 
discrimination  and  the  discussion  of  theory  for  the  sake 
of  discussion  becomes  itself  more  and  more  unliterary,  so, 
literature,  in  its  modern  emphasis  of  the  lighter  forms, 
in  the  widely  developing  sphere  of  sentimental  fiction 
and  miscellany  inclines  less  and  less  to  the  philosophical, 
so  that  each  needs  the  other  for  those  permanent  benefits 
which  as  mutual  departments  they  respectively  lend  to 
each  other. 

The  German  philosophers  as  a  class  tend  to  this  unlit- 
erary extreme,  in  their  philosophic  writings,  while,  as 
authors,  within  the  sphere  of  literature  proper,  they  are 
philosophic.  The  French,  on  the  other  hand,  reverse 
this  condition,  and,  while,  as  philosophers,  they  write  in 
literary  form,  as  authors  pure  and  simple,  they  tend  to 
the  absence  of  the  weighty  and  philosophic.     Kant  and 


LITEBATUBE  AND  PHILOSOPHY  81 

his  school  write  philosophy  in  anything  but  literary 
manner,  altho  the  great  prose  authors  of  Germany,  such 
as  Goethe,  Lessing,  Herder  and  the  Schlegels  write  in 
philosophic  form,  such  an  author  as  Jean  Paul  Eichter 
finely  illustrating  the  relation  of  philosophy  and  liter- 
ature. 

So,  in  France,  such  a  philosopher  as  Cousin  or  Des- 
cartes writes  philosophy  from  the  literary  side,  while 
writing  literature  from  the  side  of  philosophy.  North 
European  literature,  as  such,  is,  in  the  main,  philosophic, 
while,  in  Southern  Europe,  there  is  less  of  the  philo- 
sophic and  more  of  the  literary. 

In  England,  where  the  North  and  the  South,  the  Teu- 
tonic and  the  Latin  races  meet  and  fuse,  we  should  find 
what  we,  in  fact,  do  find,  the  combination  of  the  philo- 
sophic and  the  poetic — authors  like  Bacon  and  Hume 
writing  philosophy  in  literary  form,  and  such  as  Cole- 
ridge and  Emerson  writing  literature  in  philosophic 
form.  Wordsworth's  '^Excursion"  is  a  philosophic 
poem,  tho  containing  true  poetic  genius,  as  is  Tenny- 
son's "In  Memoriam"  and  Goethe's  "Faust." 

In  speaking  of  the  relations  of  Philosophy  and  Liter- 
ature, special  caution  is  to  be  exercised,  lest  Literature, 
in  aiming  to  become  philosophic  in  the  sense  of  becom- 
ing substantial  and  forceful,  become  such  on  the  side  of 
abstruse  theorizing.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  Specula- 
tive Philosophy,  legitimate  as  a  form  within  the  province 
of  philosophy.  Literature  should  not  be  speculative. 
Literature  is  a  mental  product  for  realization  and  not  a 
mental  problem  for  curious  inspection  and  solution.  It 
is  a  mental  pleasure  as  well  as  a  distinctly  mental  gym- 
nastic— a  revelation  and  an  interpretation  more  than  a 
speculation.     Pope's  "Essay  on  Man"  is  an  example  in 


82  LITEBATXJBE 

point — so  reflecting  the  speculative  philosophy  of  the 
day,  as  discussed  by  Bolingbroke  and  others,  that,  its 
correct  versification  apart,  it  might  take  its  place  among 
the  didactic,  philosophic  treatises  of  the  time.  It  was 
simply  the  way  in  which  Pope  preferred  to  state  and 
apply  his  philosophy,  just  as  he  stated  and  applied  his 
view  of  Critical  Laws  in  his  ''Essay  on  Criticism." 

The  ''Essay  on  Man"  is  as  speculative  as  is  Locke's 
"Essay  on  Human  Understanding" — their  only  differ- 
ence being,  that  one  is  poetry,  and  the  other  is  prose  in 
its  essential  form.  Much  of  the  vagueness  of  Mr.  Brown- 
ing's verse  is  explained  at  this  point,  in  that  the  psy- 
chology of  the  poet's  mind  is  made  prominent  on  the 
speculative  side,  and  while  reading  some  of  his  works, 
we  forget,  for  the  time,  that  we  are  reading  a  poet  at  all. 
So  decided  is  this  tendency  in  literature  that  the  study 
of  literary  history  in  England  and  elsewhere  is  sufficient 
to  evince  its  presence  and  its  power.  We  see  it  in  the 
Neo-Platonic  writings  of  Greece,  as  applied  in  philos- 
ophy, theology  and  literature  proper. 

It  is  clearly  seen  in  what  is  known  as  The  Mystical 
School,  as  Mr.  Selkirk  has  discussed  it  in  his  ' '  Ethics  and 
Esthetics  of  Modern  Poetry, ' '  as,  also,  developed,  on  the 
side  of  prose,  among  the  Pietists  of  France.  The  Meta- 
physical School  of  the  later  Elizabethan  era  illustrates  it, 
as,  also,  the  prevailing  Euphuism  of  the  days  of  Sidney. 

In  our  own  country,  the  Transcendental  School  of  Al- 
cott  and  Emerson  incorporated  its  main  principles  in 
their  attempt  to  philosophize  as  authors — to  minimize 
the  distance  and  the  differences  between  Literature  and 
Philosophy  so  as  practically  to  obliterate  such  differences 
and  place  the  speculative  reason  on  the  same  plane  as 
the  taste  and  esthetic  nature  of  man. 


LITEEATUBE  AND  PHILOSOPHY  83 

Through  the  influence  of  Edwin  Arnold  and  his  School, 
this  mystic  and  ultra  psychological  method  in  letters  is 
increasing  rather  than  diminishing.  This  Asiatic  type 
of  literary  treatment,  which  hitherto  has  been  viewed  as 
florid  and  pictorial,  has  taken  on  more  and  more  of  the 
subjective  and  metaphysical,  largely  induced  by  the  fact 
that  much  of  this  verse  is  the  interpretation  of  Brahminic 
and  Buddhistic  theology.  '  '■  The  Light  of  Asia ' '  is  noth- 
ing more  nor  less  than  the  impersonation  and  glorification 
of  Gautama  in  literature — a  mythical,  vague  and  dreamy 
reverie,  wherein  the  theology  and  philosphy  of  the  Orient 
on  the  pagan  side  are  embodied  in  verse.  The  result  of 
all  this  is  neither  Poetry  nor  Philosophy,  but  an  abnor- 
mal combination  of  the  two,  and  when  the  reader  rises 
from  the  reading,  he  is  less  sure  than  ever  of  his  ground 
and  is  quite  at  a  loss  to  tell  whether  he  has  been  study- 
ing literature  or  wrestling  with  the  abstruse  vagaries  of 
the  East.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  middle  ground  is  the 
desirable  one,  where  the  philosopher  and  the  author, 
recognizing  their  respective  spheres  and  aims,  seek  to 
magnify  all  points  of  resemblance  and  establish  thereby 
the  unity  of  truth. 

Leslie  Stephen,  in  his  ^'  History  of  English  Thought," 
gives  fitting  place  to  this  relationship,  as  he  is  careful  to 
trace  the  development  of  English  Literature  side  by  side 
with  that  of  English  Philosophy.  Draper,  in  his  ^^In- 
tellectual Development  of  Europe, ' '  emphasizes  the  lit- 
erary development  as  the  necessary  counterpart  of  such 
development.  Bascom,  in  his  ' '  Philosophy  of  English 
Literature, ' '  devotes  a  separate  chapter  to  the  discussion 
of  the  great  Philosophical  systems  of  England,  from  Bacon 
through  Hobbes  and  Hume  to  Bain  and  Spenser  and  the 
Scottish  School;  the  right  conclusion  being  in  these  and 


84  LITERATURE 

kindred  treatises  that  the  comiection  between  the  two 
spheres  is  snch  that  no  true  account  of  the  one  can  be 
given  without  a  study  of  the  other. 

If,  indeed,  matters  are  reduced  to  their  last  analysis, 
the  place  of  prominence  should  be  given  to  Philosophy 
as  the  first  of  all  the  secular  sciences  and  the  one  in  the 
light  of  which  all  related  and  subsidiary  sciences  should 
be  studied. 

The  Degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy  in  the  Universities 
of  Europe  significantly  includes  far  more  than  philosophy 
proper,  and  stands  for  that  symmetrical  training  of  which 
he  should  be  possessed  who  pretends  to  be  a  scholar.  It 
is  quite  suggestive,  following  the  same  precedent,  that,  in 
our  own  country,  the  old  degree  of  Doctor  of  Letters  is 
giving  place  to  the  broader  and  higher  title  of  Doctor  of 
Philosophy  in  Letters.  In  all  such  classifications  we  note 
the  place  of  philosophy  as  primal  and  central,  the  study 
of  studies,  and  that  without  which  all  others  are  but 
partially  pursued. 

Literature,  therefore,  as  correctly  interpreted,  presup- 
poses and  involves  jihilosophical  study  as  necessary  to 
the  interpretation  of  literature  itself.  On  such  wise,  the 
best  results  are  reached  both  in  philosophy  and  liter- 
ature, while  to  literature  itself  is  given  that  stable  and 
stimulating  quality  which  it  especially  needs.  Hence, 
the  important  relation  of  a  liberal  education  to  the  de- 
veloping literature  of  a  nation,  so  that  the  colleges  and 
universities  of  this  and  other  lands  may  furnish  authors 
disciplined  in  every  fe;Culty  and  able  to  embody  their 
best  thought  in  the  best  external  form. 


Ml 


CHAPTEE   SIX 
LITERATURE  AND   POLITICS 

The  term,  Politics,  is  liere  used  in  its  \ridest  and 
highest  sense,  as  contrasted  with  that  narrower  and 
lower  view  current  in  popular  speech.  By  it  we  mean, 
all  that  is  meant  by  Civic  or  Political  Science,  by  State- 
craft or  the  Life  and  Eule  of  the  State.  In  this  sense, 
we  speak  of  the  Scholar'  in  Politics,  the  Author  in  Poli- 
tics, Literature  and  Politics,  so  that  the  discussion  takes 
us,  at  once,  out  of  the  region  of  the  mere  politician  so 
called  or  the  public  demagogue  into  that  of  the  statesman 
proper,  as  a  representative  and  servant  of  the  people  at 
large. 

A  priori,  it  might  be  argued,  that  such  a  relationship, 
if  existing  at  all,  is  a  distant  and  an  indefinable  one.  TTe 
are  not  accustomed  to  connect  these  two  great  depart- 
ments of  human  thought  and  activity  by  any  necessary 
or  vital  law  of  interaction,  assigning  them,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  different  spheres,  and  noting  their  contrasts 
rather  than  their  resemblances  and  points  of  contact.  In 
a  word,  we  view  them  as  mutually  exclusive,  in  their 
nature,  methods  and  expression  and  ultimate  aims,  and 
are  willing  to  concede  that  they  affect  each  other  only  in 
the  sense  and  to  the  degree  in  which  any  one  branch  of 
mental  activity  affects  another  contiguous  to  it. 

The  more  we  examine  the  matter,  however,  disarmed 
of  all  prejudice,  the  more  clearly  it  appears,  that  a  rela- 

85 


86  LITERATURE 

tionship  of  interest  and  value  exists,  so  pronounced, 
indeed,  in  the  sphere  both  of  politics  and  literature,  that 
no  student  of  either  can  afford  to  ignore  it,  or  be  said,  if 
ignoring  it,  to  understand  aright  the  one  or  the  other 
subject. 

A.  If  we  inquire  as  to  any  actual  Grounds  or  Reasons 
for  such  Eelation,  we  note — 

1.  That  Great  Civic  Questions  are  to  be  discussed, 
outside  the  province  of  legislatures  and  political  assem- 
blies, and  by  other  methods  than  by  oral  address  in  the 
presence  of  the  people  as  their  official  representatives. 
They  are  to  be  discussed  in  writing  by  the  author  in  his 
study,  so  that  the  pen  and  the  voice  may  be  unified  in 
their  expression  and  contribute  to  a  common  end.  In- 
deed, many  of  the  great  Civic  Deliverances,  so  called,  of 
ancient  and  modern  times,  were  never  uttered  in  any 
legislative  hall  or  in  the  hearing  of  the  people,  but  have 
found  their  first  and  only  expression  in  the  written  form. 
Some  of  the  Orations  of  Cicero  are  proof  in  point,  as, 
also,  of  the  great  debaters  of  the  Modern  European  and 
American  world.  It  is  an  open  question,  whether  or  not 
Gladstone's  pen  was  not  as  busy  and  potent  as  his  voice 
in  expounding  and  defending  those  great  political  ques- 
tions to  the  study  of  which  his  life  was  devoted. 

2.  We  find  a  further  Eeason  for  such  Relation  in  what 
may  be  called — The  Common  Environment  of  Authors 
and  Statesmen,  finding  themselves,  as  is  so  often  the 
case,  surrounded  by  the  same  class  of  influences,  agen- 
cies, opportunities  and  motives,  so  that  the  situation,  as 
it  presents  itself,  can  not  be  fully  seen  or  utilized  save 
as  it  is  studied  from  the  twofold  point  of  view,  that  of 


LITERATURE  AND  POLITICS  87 

literature  and  statecraft.  The  greater  the  literature  and 
the  greater  the  state,  the  more  decidedly  is  this  Environ- 
ment one,  and  any  attempt  to  distinguish  it,  difficult  and 
unnatural.  In  the  best  days  of  Classical  Literature,  as 
in  those  of  English  and  Continental  Literature — the 
Golden  Ages,  so  called — authors  and  statesmen  were 
seen  to  stand  on  common  ground,  and  seek,  in  the  end, 
the  same  great  interests,  even  tho  by  decided  difference 
of  method. 

3.  Hence,  a  third  Eeason  is  apparent,  in  that  the 
Author  and  the  Statesman,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  are  often 
found  in  one  and  the  same  x)ersonality,  as  seen  in  Glad- 
stone, Disraeli  and  Macaulay,  of  England  ;  and  in  Low- 
ell, Irving,  Bayard  Taylor  and  Hawthorne  and  Bancroft, 
of  America.  In  not  a  few  instances,  indeed,  so  thorough 
has  been  the  identification  with  both  of  these  forms  of 
activity  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  draw  the  line  of  sep- 
aration, or  to  decide  in  which  of  these  arenas  the  person 
in  question  was  the  more  successful.  'Twas  so  with 
Gladstone,  and  is  so  with  John  Morley,  Justin  McCarthy, 
and  Mr.  Balfour,  now  living  and  working  with  equal 
facility  and  distinction  in  literature  and  statecraft.  Such 
a  combination,  in  any  marked  expression,  is,  certainly, 
indicative  of  genius,  creditable  ahke  to  literature  and 
politics,  and  full  of  promise  as  to  the  possible  future  co- 
ordinate development  of  these  two  great  lines  of  mental 
life. 

We  are  thus  brought  to  the  second  and  wider  question 
before  us,  as  we  inquire  concerning — 

B.  The  Specific  Forms  of  Political  Literature,  how  it 
exemplifies  itself  in  actual  written  product,  while,  in 
advancing  this  inquiry,  we  need  scarcely  pass  beyond 


88  LITEBATTJBE 

the  bounds  of  English  Letters  to  illustrate  and  confirm 
the  relation. 

Nor  need  we  be  surprised  to  find  that  the  department 
of  Prose  Expression,  as  distinct  from  Verse,  is  the  one 
in  which  such  a  principle  is  especially  applied ;  sufQ.- 
cient  reason  for  this  being  found  in  the  fact,  that,  in  the 
nature  of  the  case,  civic  ideas  find  their  natural  medium 
in  the  various  forms  of  prose,  while,  in  literature  itself, 
the  sum  total  of  prose  expression  is  far  in  advance  of 
that  of  poetic  expression  and,  prospectively,  in  an  ever- 
increasing  ratio. 

Noting,  then,  these  Specific  Forms,  the  first  that  im- 
presses us  is — 

1.  Political  History,  The  History  of  Political  Develop- 
ment, as  we  have  the  History  of  Philology,  Language, 
Art,  Literature  and  Science,  such  a  type  of  narrative 
Literature,  often,  tho  not,  necessarily,  always,  being 
embodied  in  controversial  terms — political  polemics,  the 
record  of  partisan  strife.  Such  a  politico-literary  series 
is  amply  illustrated  in  "The  Story  of  the  Nations,"  now 
in  process  of  publication,  as,  also,  in  The  American 
Commonwealth  Series,  wherein  the  civic  life  of  Nations 
and  States  is  portrayed  with  all  the  minuteness  of  bio- 
graphical narrative,  and  as  if  these  States  were  possessed 
of  a  conscious  personality  and  life.  In  fact,  they  are  so 
studied  and  presented ;  and  so  lifelike  is  the  story  that 
the  reader  forgets,  for  the  time,  that  he  is  reading  the 
history  of  the  abstract  and  impersonal. 

Especially  is  this  result  obtained,  when,  to  the  dis- 
tinctive narrative  element,  the  descriptive  is  added,  as 
in  Prescott's  Conquest  of  Peru  or  Mexico,  or  Macaulay's 
History  of  England,   or  Lecky's  History  of  European 


LITEBATUBE  AND  POLITICS  89 

Morals,  when  great  historical  facts  and  scenes  and 
personages  appear  in  such  vividness  as  to  make  the 
record  real  to  us.  Of  Political  History  Proper,  there 
are,  among  others,  three  Forms  or  Types  deserving  em- 
phasis— 

(a)  The  first,  we  shall  call,  The  History  of  Political 
Construction  and  Eeconstruction,  the  Building  of  the 
State.  It  is  a  History  of  Formations,  constructive  as  it 
is  reconstructive,  the  principle  of  synthesis  applied  to 
national  life.  It  has  to  do  with  what  Elton  calls.  The 
Origins  of  a  nation.  It  is  an  account  of  Civic  Organiza- 
tion from  existing  materials.  It  is  thus  that  Hallam  and 
Stubbs  and  Yonge  and  Bryce  and  others  have  given  us 
The  Constitutional  History  of  England  and  America, 
which  is  but  another  name  for  the  History  of  Political 
Eeconstruction,  its  genesis,  process,  and  result. 

At  times,  it  takes  the  form  of  The  History  of  Politics 
and  The  State,  as  in  Yon  Hoist's  Constitutional  and 
Political  History  of  the  United  States,  in  Draper' s  Ci\T.l 
Polity  of  America,  in  such  a  volume  of  The  Epoch's  of 
English  History  as  The  Settlement  of  the  Constitution 
—(1688-1788). 

At  times,  it  appears  in  the  form  of  a  History  of  Civil 
Government,  as  in  the  works,  respectively,  of  Harring- 
ton and  Sidney  and  Locke  and  Maine,  whatever  the 
form  of  the  government  may  be — Monarchic,  Aristo- 
cratic, Democratic  or  Mixed. 

At  times,  it  is  seen  as  Parliamentary  History  or  the 
History  of  Political  Assemblies  in  general,  or  as  illus- 
trated in  any  particular  nation,  as  England  or  France. 

In  such  a  narrative  of  Construction  and  Eeconstruc- 
tion, the  History  of  great  Political  Parties  is  involved, 
as  representing,  respectively,  great  political  principles 


90  LITEBATUEE 

and  policies,  that  are,  as  such,  deemed  essential  in  the 
structure  of  the  state.  We  are  treating,  here,  of  Party 
Politics  in  the  highest  and  best  sense — the  Politics  of 
Parties,  honestly  differing  in  their  conception  of  the 
nature,  province  and  purpose  of  Civil  Government, 
earnestly  anxious  for  the  well-being  of  the  state,  adher- 
ing to  their  respective  convictions  and,  yet,  not  unwill- 
ing to  make  concessions  for  the  common  good — Party 
Politics  as  constructive  and  not  destructive,  coming  to 
agreement  after  full  discussion,  preferring  settlement  to 
dispute.  In  a  word,  what  is  meant  here  by  Constructive 
Political  History,  is  what  Mr.  Green  means  in  his  in- 
structive volume.  The  Making  of  England,  in  which  he 
aims  to  set  forth  those  elements  and  factors  which  go  to 
the  making  of  a  nation  out  of  the  raw  material  which 
lies  at  hand,  whence  they  are  derived,  and  how  they  are 
adjusted,  and  what  these  respective  factors  are. 

(&)  A  further  form  of  Political  History,  as  presented 
by  the  author  on  the  literary  side  as  well  as  the  political, 
is  the  History  of  Political  Revolution,  the  destructive 
side  of  the  subject,  analytic  or  divisive  rather  than  syn- 
thetic or  constructive,  as  necessary  and  frequent  a  form 
as  the  other;  in  fact,  more  in  consonance  with  the  dis- 
integrating forces  of  human  nature,  as  embodied  in 
society,  government  and  civilization  at  large. 

Hence,  it  is  that,  by  a  kind  of  historic  and  providen- 
tial law,  the  law  of  action  and  reaction,  progress  and| 
decline,  re-construction  and  de-construction,  organiza-  [ 
tion  and  disorganization,  alternate  at  somewhat  regular 
intervals  in  the  life  of  the  state.  The  History  of  Civili- 
zation, so-called,  is  but  the  history  of  such  transitions, 
their  causes  and  processes  being,  at  times,  revealed,  and, 
at  times,  concealed.     To  give  a  true  account  of  these 


LITEBATTJBE  AND  POLITICS  91 

Political  Ee volutions  and  Evolutions,  in  so  far  as  known, 
is  a  part  of  the  duty  of  the  literary  historian,  to  trace 
their  origin;  their  development,  as  gradual  or  violent; 
their  manifold  consequences  in  the  nation  or  nations 
specially  affected;  and  thus  to  make  it  possible  for  suc- 
ceeding annalists  to  continue  the  record  as  necessity 
may  require. 

The  French  Eevolution  is  as  notable  an  instance  as 
there  is  of  this  particular  type  of  national  life  as  affect- 
ing literature  and  being  affected  by  it.  Prof.  Dowden's 
recent  contribution  to  this  subject  under  the  title  '^  Eng- 
lish Literature  and  The  French  Eevolution, "  is  a  fitting 
illustration  of  the  case  in  point,  as  are  all  those  histori- 
ans of  that  struggle,  as  Carlyle,  who  aim  to  give  a  true 
account  of  its  occasion  and  results.  Indeed,  as  the  his- 
tory of  nations,  tho  called  civil  history,  is  largely  a  his- 
tory of  national  revolutions,  the  phrase,  Eevolutionary 
history,  might  justly  be  adopted  in  lieu  of  the  term  civil 
or  descriptive.  Thus,  the  History  of  the  French  and 
English  Wars,  as  of  the  Wars  of  The  Eoses,  involves, 
as  a  fundamental  factor,  the  History  of  English  Letters 
in  the  fifteenth  century;  as  that  of  the  Stuarts,  and  of 
the  House  of  Orange  involves  such  a  history  in  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries.  Prof.  Tyler,  in  his 
recent  interesting  volume,  '^  The  Literary  History  of  The 
American  Eevolution, ' '  applies  this  fruitful  principle  of 
relationship  to  American  Letters,  insomuch  that  it  is 
seen  that  the  History  of  that  period  is  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  a  History  of  Political  Eevolution,  and  the 
authors  of  the  period  are  merely  the  representative  ex- 
ponents of  such  developments.  So,  Gibbon  in  his  De- 
cline and  Fall  of  the  Eoman  Empire;  Grote,  in  his  His- 
tory of  Greece;    I^apier,  in  his  Peninsular  War;   and 


92  LITEBATTJBE 

Schiller,  in  liis  Thirty  Years'  "War,  reveal  the  close 
relation  of  political  life  on  its  revolutionary  side  and 
literary  life  proper,  here  and  there,  as  in  the  case  of 
Csesar,  and  of  ^schylus,  a  soldier  at  Marathon  and 
Salamis  and  Plataea,  the  author  appearing  as  an  actual 
personal  participant  in  the  strife  of  arms.  In  such 
Aolumes  as  '■ '  The  Struggle  Against  Absolute  Monarchy ' ' 
(1603-88),  "  The  Eise  of  the  People  "  (1216-1485), 
this  is  the  special  topic  in  hand. 

Hence,  it  may  be  stated,  that,  as  in  the  History  of 
Political  Eeconstruction,  the  rise  and  function  of  Polit- 
ical Parties  is  a  necessary  portion  of  the  record,  so, 
in  the  History  of  Revolutions,  Parties  become  strictly 
partisan,  organizations  beneficent  in  themselves  are  de- 
graded and  i^erverted  to  sectional  uses,  so  that,  in  the  place 
of  salutary  constructive  work,  the  entire  process  is  un 
settling  and  disturbing,  requiring,  however,  none  the 
less,  the  services  of  the  author  to  observe  the  phenomena 
and  submit  a  truthful  record  of  them  to  his  age. 

c.  Hence,  a  third  and  essential  form  of  Political  His- 
tory, as  seen  in  The  History  of  Political  and  Eeligious 
Reformation,  the  term,  Eeformation,  as  a  distinctly  eth- 
ical term,  at  once  transferring  the  whole  subject  of  politics 
proper  into  the  domain  of  moral  action  and  accountabil- 
ity. Here,  is  evident,  at  once,  the  close  relation  of 
church  and  state,  and  when  it  is  remembered  that,  in 
most  of  the  great  literatures  of  the  world,  such  a  relation 
exists  and  is  operative,  it  will  be  clearly  seen  how  large 
is  the  volume  of  that  politico-ecclesiastical  literature 
which  the  conscientious  reader  must  take  into  account. 
Continental  Literature,  especially  in  Protestant  Germany, 
Switzerland,  and  the  Netherlands,  is  thus  ecclesiastically 
connected,  as  it  is  in  England  herself,  as  an  Anglican 


LITEBATVEE  AND  POLITICS  93 

nation  ;  the  history,  also,  of  the  Eoman  Catholic  Church 
in  Europe,  being  vitally  bound  up  with  that  of  European 
Letters.  The  Histories  of  Lingard  and  Soames,  respect- 
ively, defending  Eomish  and  Protestant  interests,  in 
Early  English  Literature,  illustrate  the  same  great  truth. 
The  History  of  The  Great  Reformations,  as  the  Lutheran 
and  the  English,  is  but  a  record  of  this  relation.  Such 
volumes  as  "  Tudors  and  The  Reformation  "  (1485-1603), 
^'The  Puritan  Revolution,"  ''The  Protestant  Revolu- 
tion," "The  Epoch  of  Reform,"  and  ''The  Crusaders" 
illustrate  it.  D' Aubigne  and  Burnet  as  specially  church 
historians  of  the  Reformation  are  literary  historians,  as 
well.  So,  Froude  and  Macaulay  and  Lecky  in  their  re- 
spective writings.  What  have  been  called.  The  European 
Wars  of  Religion,  incited  and  conducted  with  reforma- 
tory ends  in  view,  must  have  their  historians,  wherein 
the  author  must  appear  in  the  double  role  of  narrator 
and  ecclesiastic.  Richard  Hooker,  in  his  famous  work, 
"The  Ecclesiastical  Polity,"  appears  so  at  home  in 
each  of  these  spheres  of  thought  that  we  can  not  dis- 
connect him  from  either.  Ecclesiastical  History  is  an 
essential  branch  of  History  proper  and,  therefore,  of 
Literature. 

Such  are  the  three  great  departments  of  Literary  Nar- 
rative as  related  to  Politics,  with  which  the  author  proper 
must  deal — The  History  of  Political  Reconstruction,  of 
Political  Revolution,  and  of  Political  Reformation,  on 
the  ecclesiastical  side. 

Summed  up  in  a  single  statement,  we  have  here,  both 
on  the  political  and  literary  side,  nothing  less  than  The 
Histoiy  of  Civilization,  wherein  profane  and  sacred  his- 
tory are  alike  presented,  the  complete  story  of  the  world 
given  as  it  stands.     In  such    authors  as  Guizot  and 


94  LITEEATUBE 

Buckle,  the  close  connection  of  literature  and  politics  is 
seen  on  every  page. 

2.  Closely  connected  with,  the  Department  of  Political 
History  is  that  of  Political  Biography,  a  second  form  in 
which  this  politico -literary  principle  comes  to  view,  par- 
taking of  some  of  the  general  features  of  history  proper, 
and  yet  having  a  field  and  function  of  its  own.  There  is  a 
sense,  indeed,  in  which  it  may  be  said  to  possess  a  more 
definite  and  vital  interest,  in  that  it  involves  the  personal 
element,  by  which  we  see  living  men  as  veritable  actors 
on  the  open  stage  of  the  world's  manifold  life. 

ISTothing  could  more  clearly  evince  the  increasing  in- 
terest that  is  attached  to  this  particular  branch  of  po- 
litical literature  than  the  rapidity  with  which  such  an 
order  of  literature  is  appearing  in  this  and  other  lands. 
In  England  and  America  alone,  no  less  than  ten  or 
twelve  distinct  series  of  such  publications  are  already  at 
hand  or  in  the  course  of  preparation — such  as  :  The  Eng- 
lish Statesmen  Series;  English  Eadical  Leaders;  Forster's 
British  Statesmen  ;  English  Men  of  Action  Series  ;  The 
Queen's  Prime  Ministers;  Thackeray's  Four  Georges; 
Strickland's  Queens  of  England  ;  The  American  States- 
men Series,  and  The  Heroes  of  the  Nations.  The  sum 
total  of  the  volumes  included  in  [the  various  Collections 
runs  up  into  the  hundreds,  and  still  new  series  are 
anticipated.  Whatever  the  special  title,  they  are  alike 
politico-literary,  the  biography  of  great  national  leaders 
in  peace  and  war. 

If,  to  these,  we  add,  the  list  of  separate  biographies — 
the  lives  of  men  who  have  taken  prominent  part  in  po- 
litical history  as  reconstructive,  revolutionary  and  re- 
forming, the  number  is  legion — such  as:  Carlyle's  Crom- 


LITEEAIUBE  AND  POLITICS  95 

well  and  Frederick  The  Great;  Froude's  Caesar;  Abbot's 
I^apoleon;  Motley's  John  of  Barnevelde;  Hughes'  Alfred 
the  Great;  Irving' s  Washington;  Prior's  Burke;  and  the 
lives  of  Machiavelli,  Charlemagne,  and  Cavour,  and  Peter 
The  Great,  and  similar  historic  characters.  In  these  and 
kindred  volumes,  tho  the  author  sits  down  to  his  work  in 
a  somewhat  different  attitude  from  that  assumed  when 
Spedding  wrote  his  Life  of  Bacon  ;  or  Forster  that  of 
Dickens;  or  Holmes,  that  of  Emerson;  the  author  is  still 
an  author,  tho  with  the  civic  life  of  the  man  or  the  nation 
prominently  in  view,  and  tho  by  reason  of  such  a  prom- 
inence, the  literary  record  may  lose  something  in  the 
line  of  verbal  refinement  and  esthetic  type,  it  may,  also, 
gain  as  much  in  a  vigorous  and  impressive  style. 

3.  A  third  and  interesting  form  of  Political  Literature 
is  included  in  the  wide-reaching  phrase — Political  Prose 
Miscellany.  Here  is  opened  a  vast  and  an  inviting  field 
as  distinct  from  Political  History  and  Biography ;  so 
spacious,  indeed,  as  a  separate  province,  as  in  itself  to 
justify  the  discussion  before  us,  and  to  prove,  beyond  all 
question,  the  close  relation  of  Literature  and  Politics. 
With  that  special  branch  of  Prose  Miscellany  which  is 
caUed  Critical,  as  illustrated  in  the  writings  of  Dryden, 
Coleridge,  Bayne,  Matthew  Arnold  and  Pater,  Political 
Literature,  of  course,  has  little,  if  anything,  to  do,  our 
attention  being  directed  to  that  section  of  Miscellany 
called  Descriptive,  not  a  few  of  the  ablest  authors  in 
English  and  Continental  Letters  having  chosen  this  par- 
ticular form  of  prose  as  the  one  best  adapted  to  embody 
their  best  endeavors. 

Of  this  Prose  Type,  there  are  three  distinct  divisions 
that  express  a  specific  political  feature. 


96  LITEBATVBE  ^ 

(a)  The  first  is  the  Political  Essay,  and  finds  abundant 
illustration  in  British  and  American  Literature — begin- 
ning as  far  back  as  the  fifteenth  century,  in  the  publica- 
tion of  ''  The  Paston  Letters  "  ;  the  writings  of  Fortescue, 
on  '^Monarchy''  ;  Malory's  ''King  Arthur,"  and  simi- 
lar treatises  on  Government  and  Constitutional  Law. 
Coming  to  the  Elizabethan  Age  and  Modern  English 
Proper,  we  note  among  Bacon's  Essays,  such  political 
titles  as  ''Seditious"  and  "Troubles,"  ''Empire," 
"The  True  Greatness  of  Kingdoms,"  and  "Faction"  ; 
in  Jonson'  s  ' '  Discoveries, ' '  reflections  on  ' '  Love  of  Coun- 
try," and  on  "Princes"  ;  in  Cowley,  Essays  on  "Lib- 
erty" and  "The  Government  of  Cromwell"  ;  and,  in 
Milton,  "The  Tenure  of  Kings  and  Magistrates,"  "A 
Free  Commonwealth,"  and  similar  civic  discussions,  the 
Prose  of  the  Commonwealth,  whether  in  extended  book- 
form,  or  in  the  essay  proper  being  best  designated  as 
political  prose,  necessitated  as  it  was,  by  the  temper  of 
the  time.  Later  in  the  literary  history,  as  we  come  to 
The  Augustan  Age  of  Swift  and  Addison  and  the  so- 
called  Pamphleteers,  we  note  an  intense  politico-literary 
type,  in  Swift's  "Letters  to  the  October  Club"  on 
"Governmental  Eeform"  ;  his  "Public  Spirit  of  the 
Whigs"  ;  in  the  numerous  political  essays  of  "The 
Spectator,"  and  "Guardian,"  and  in  the  "Freeholder," 
a  purely  political  periodical  on  behalf  of  The  House  of 
Hanover  ;  in  the  ' '  Eambler, ' '  and  ' '  Idler ' '  of  Dr.  John- 
son, and  in  his  "  Easselas,  Prince  of  Abyssinia" ;  in  Mac- 
anlay's  civic  papers  on  "  Machiavelli, "  "Mirabeau," 
"Frederick,"  "Hampden,"  "Pitt,"  "Chatham,"  and 
' '  Hastings  "  ;  in  De  Quincey '  s  papers  on,  ' '  The  Caesars, ' ' 
"Charlemagne,"  "The  Eevolution  of  Greece,"  and  on 
••  A\^iiggisin  in  its  Eelations  to  Literature"  ;  in  Carlyle's 


LITEBATVBE  AND  POLITICS  97 

^'Lectures  on  Heroes,"  his  ''Latter  Day  Pamplilets," 
' '  Chartism, "  ' '  Early  Kings  of  Norway, ' '  and  * '  Eesto- 
ration  of  Modern  Europe"  ;  in  Arnold's  "Culture  and 
Anarchy,"  and  his  paper  on  ''Numbers"  and,  so,  on 
through  English  Literature  and  History  down  to  the  last 
decade  and  the  death  of  Gladstone,  himself  a  brilliant 
example  of  the  civico-literary  essayist.  So,  in  American 
Letters,  as  distinct  from  British,  have  Irving  and  Bryant 
and  Hawthorne  and  Emerson,  Longfellow  and  Whittier, 
Lowell  and  Prescott  written  political  miscellany  and  so, 
in  General  and  European  Literature,  have  authors 
thus  written,  as  in  Germany,  especially  in  the  days  of 
The  Sturm  and  Drang  Period  (1770-1830),  when  the 
greatest  authors  of  the  nation,  Goethe,  Schiller,  and 
Herder  aimed  to  voice  the  Eevolutionary  sentiment^  of 
the  time  ;  as  in  France,  in  the  Age  of  Louis  XIV.,  and 
of  Voltaire  and  in  every  nation  when  great  civic  interests 
were  threatened,  and  men  of  letters  were  obliged  to  take 
an  active  part  in  the  field  of  political  controversy. 

(&)  Closely  connected  in  occasion  and  purpose  with 
the  political  Essay  is  the  Political  Oration,  as  a  second 
form  of  Political  Prose  Miscellany — the  distinctive  for- 
ensic or  parliamentary  form,  as  contrasted  with  the  others 
that  are  less  outspoken  and  demonstrative,  the  most 
declarative  and  practical  of  all,  the  political  essayist  and 
the  political  forensic  writer  often  being  embodied  in  the 
same  personality. 

Nor  is  the  reference  here,  necessarily,  to  the  oration 
as  pronounced  in  open  assembly,  but  to  it  as  a  literary 
product,  in  manuscript,  prior  to  its  oral  presentation, 
judged  on  its  own  merits  as  such,  and  possibly  never  de- 
livered in  public  address,  as  is  true  of  many  of  the  great 
orations,  so  called,  of  ancient  and  modern  times.     In 


98  LITERATURE 

English  Literature,  tlie  best  illustration  of  this  type  of 
prose  miscellany  is  found  in  the  great  British  and  Amer- 
ican Orators — as  in  Edmund  Burke's  ''Speech  on  Amer- 
ican Taxation,"  on  ''Conciliation  With  America"  and 
on  "The  Impeachment  of  Hastings"  ;  in  the  stirring 
deliverances  of  William  Pitt,  and  Grattan  and  O'Con- 
nell ;  and,  in  America,  in  Adams,  Otis  and  Webster, 
wherein  the  didactic  yields  to  the  impassioned  ;  indirect 
address,  to  the  direct ;  speculative  theory,  to  practical 
issues,  and  the  only  object  of  the  author  is  to  produce 
conviction  and  open  the  way  to  immediate  action. 

Probably,  the  most  effective  form  of  the  Political  Ora- 
tion is  the  Argumentative  and,  indeed,  its  most  natural 
and  frequent  form,  wherein  the  writer,  as  a  prospective 
orator,  assumes  the  attitude  of  the  disputant;  accepts,  at 
once,  his  position,  for  or  against  a  proposed  policy  or 
principle,  and  proceeds  to  defend  it  against  actual  or 
supposed  opposition.  The  great  written  Debates  of 
Literary  History  are  thus  deducible  in  this  connec- 
tion, having  all  the  advantage  of  the  ordinary,  ora- 
torical production  with  the  additional  advantage  of 
that  pertinence  and  impressiveness  that  comes  from 
the  discussion  of  vital  topics  in  the  presence  of  hostile 
influences. 

It  is,  hence,  at  this  point,  that  written  and  oral  dis- 
course come  into  closest  connection,  it  being  difl&cult,  at 
times,  to  draw  the  line  of  difference  between  them.  It 
is  here  that  the  specifically  literary  quality  of  prose 
miscellany  as  a  necessarily  written  product  is  least  pro- 
nounced, and  the  oratorial  quality  the  most  conspicuous, 
while  it  is  never  to  be  forgotten  by  the  writer  and  the 
orator  that  literature  comes  to  its  best  expression  when 
possessed  of  the  correctness  and  refinement  of  the  essay 


LITEBATTJBE  AND  POLITICS  99 

proper  as  a  written  product,  and  of  the  vigor  and  im- 
pressiveness  of  the  oration  as  an  oral  product. 

(c)  A  third  and  i)roIific  form  in  which  Political  Prose 
Miscellany  expresses  itself  is  Fiction,  the  Political  Novel 
having  become  a  distinctive  tyi)e  with  special  civic  and 
literary  ends  to  subserve.  Kor  is  it  at  all  surprising 
that  Civic  Teachings  should  express  themselves  in  this 
imaginative  form,  in  that  by  such  an  indirect  and  attract- 
ive method  they  are  often  better  represented  and  more 
effectively  impressive  than  by  the  more  direct  and  didac- 
tic methods  of  ordinary  prose.  As  far  back  as  the 
reigns  of  Henry  VIII.,  in  the  opening  years  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  Sir  Thomas  Moore  utilized  this 
principle  in  his  semi -romantic  treatise,  '^  Utopia,"  the 
burden  of  whose  teaching  is  political  and  social,  with 
primary  reference  to  the  age  in  which  it  was  written. 
Indeed,  it  may  be  said,  that  Malory's  "King  Arthur," 
published  in  1485,  opened  up  this  line  of  political  prose 
"the  best  prose  romance"  of  the  language,  according  to 
Scott.  Later  in  the  history,  Cowley,  in  his  work  en- 
titled, "A  Discourse  by  way  of  vision  concerning  the 
government  of  Cromwell,"  adopts  the  same  romantic 
method.  Coming  on  to  the  days  of  Daniel  De  Foe  and 
the  historical  genesis  of  the  Modern  Novel,  so  plentiful 
are  the  examples  of  the  political  novel  proper  that  only 
representative  specimens  can  be  cited — De  Foe  himself 
opening  such  a  series,  suffering  persecution  and  im- 
prisonment, as  he  did,  by  reason  of  his  relation  to  the 
politics  of  the  time.  We  see  it  in  Johnson's  "Rasselas, 
Prince  of  Abyssinia"  ;  in  Jane  Porter's  "Scottish 
Chiefs  " ;  in  Scott' s  ' '  Count  Eobert  of  Paris, "  "  Kenil- 
worth,"  and  other  novels;  Bulwer's  "Harold"  ;  Dis- 
raeli's "Lothair"  and  "Coningsby";  in  Mrs.  Stowe's 


100  LITUBATUBE 

Anti- Slavery    Eomance,     "Uncle    Tom"  ;    in    James' 
"Arabella  Stuart,"  and  "The  Huguenot,"  and  Cooper's 
"Spy,"  and  " Lionel  Lincoln  " ;  and  in  such  later  and 
living  authors  as  Crawford,  and  Kipling,  and  Mrs.  Wardj 
in  Louisa  Miihlbach's  Historical  novels,  such  as  "Napo 
leon  and  Blucher, "  "  The  Empress  Josephine, "   "  Fred 
erick  the  Great  and  his  Court"  j   in  Victor  Hugo's 
' '  Ninety-three, ' '  and  Goethe' s  ' '  Gotz  von  Berlichingen, ' 
and  in  other  foreign  authors.     All  these  writers  utilize 
the  function  of  romance  and  symbolic  language  to  specif 
ically  political  purposes.     Of  all  these  examples,  Mr. 
Disraeli  is  perhaps  the  most  pronounced,  whose  work  as 
a  novelist  was  prominently  political,  and  who  probably 
did  more  efficient  civic  service  in  this  direction  than  he 
could  have  done  on  the  English  Hustings. 

4.  A  fourth  and  final  form  of  political  literature  is 
seen  in  Political  Poetry,  one  of  the  strangest  mediums, 
at  first  sight,  for  the  expression  of  civic  truth,  and,  yet, 
one  of  the  most  frequent  and  popular.  Many  of  the 
prose  writers  whom  we  have  adduced  in  the  sphere  of 
political  prose  miscellany,  the  essay,  the  oration,  and 
the  novel,  have  also,  as  poets,  aimed  to  secure  the  same 
political  ends,  thus  testing,  in  their  own  experience  as 
writers,  which  of  these  two  forms  could  be  made  the 
more  efiective.  At  the  very  opening  of  national  Eng- 
lish verse,  in  the  days  of  Chaucer,  John  Gower,  penned  | 
his  "Vox  Clamantis"  in  the  light  of  the  English  Poli-| 
tics  of  the  time;  as  did  Langlande,  his  "Piers  The  Plow- 
man"; and  Lawrence  Minot,  his  Political  Poems  in 
honor  of  Edward  III.  and  in  connection  with  The  French 
and  English  Wars.  So,  in  Spenser's  "Shepherd's  Cal- 
endar," and  the  "Faerie  Queene,"  there  runs  a  distinct 


LITERATURE  AND  POLITICS  101 

political  thread,  as,  also,  in  his  ''Complaints."  Shake- 
speare, in  his  Historical  Plays ;  Ben  Jonson,  in  his 
''Sejanus"  and  ''Cataline";  andMarlowe,  in  his  "Tam- 
burlaine"  and  "Edward  the  Second,"  illustrate  the 
decided  political  bent  of  the  Elizabethan  dramatists. 
So,  Byron,  in  his  ''Siege  of  Corinth,"  "The  Two  Fos- 
cari, "  "  Sardanapolus, "  "  Marino  Faliero, "  it  is  seen,  as 
in  Scott's  "Marmion,"  in  Southey's  "Nat  Tyler"  and 
"Joan  of  Arc";  in  Coleridge's  translation  of  Schiller's 
"  Wallenstein  "  and,  so,  on  through  the  series  of  English 
Poets,  to  Tennyson's  "Harold,"  and  "Queen  Mary" 
and  "Becket,"  not  to  speak  of  the  long  list  of  Political 
Sonnets  and  National  Lyrics,  composed  by  Milton  and 
"Wordsworth  and  Burns  and  Whittier. 

Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that,  both  in  Prose  and  Verse, 
Satire  forms  a  vital  element  in  Political  writings,  such  a 
species  of  literature,  in  its  terseness  and  pointedness, 
being  specially  adapted  to  political  effect.  Thus  the 
" Drapier  Letters "  and  "Gulliver's  Travels"  by  Swift; 
that  portion  of  Pope's  verse,  under  the  name  of  "Sat- 
ires"; Dryden's  "Absalom  and  Achitophel"  and 
Butler's  "Hudibras,"  and  Lowell's  "Biglow  Papers" 
are  instances  in  point  of  political  prose  and  verse,  in  satir- 
ical dress,  poetry  especially  seeming  to  offer  an  inviting 
field  for  sarcasm,  burlesque,  and  humor,  such  deliver- 
ances often  descending  to  the  level  of  buffoonery  and 
offensive  personality,  as  in  the  verse  of  Pope  and  his 
school,  produced,  as  it  was,  in  the  bitter  controversy  of 
the  Augustan  Age. 

Thus,  it  is  clear,  that  there  is  such  a  distinctive  type 
of  Literature,  as  Civic  or  Political  Literature,  expressed 
chiefly,  indeed,  in  almost  every  form  of  Prose  and  Verse — 
in  History,  Biography,  in  Essay,  Oration  and  Novel,  in 


102  LITERATURE 

Epic,  Lyric  and  Drama,  so  as  to  constitute  a  valid  part 
of  Literature  itself,  both  English  and  foreign,  and  make 
it  necessary  for  the  student  of  Letters  to  give  it  a  place 
in  his  literary  studies. 

From  the  discussion  thus  conducted,  certain  imj)or- 
tant  inferences  and  suggestions  emerge — 

(a)  That,  notwithstanding  all  relationship  as  thus 
described,  there  is  an  important  sense  in  which  each  of 
these  great  departments  of  activity  has  its  own  specific 
Domain,  a  definite  border-line  of  distinction  lying  be- 
tween them,  beyond  which  it  is  not  desirable  that  either 
should  pass.  There  is  an  intense  personal  life  in  litera- 
ture which  makes  it  essentially  what  it  is,  and  with 
which  no  other  mental  form  or  product  can  be  on  inti- 
mate terms.  It  is  the  inner  sanctum  of  letters  and  of 
authorship,  where  the  esthetic  or  artistic  reigns  ;  where 
literary  culture,  so-called,  has  its  home,  and  is  far  re- 
moved, as  such,  from  the  open  and  unrestrained  methods 
that  belong  to  political  thought  and  life. 

Naturally,  we  find  this  unique  literary  province  and 
spirit  more  pronounced  in  verse  than  prose  ;  and,  in 
poetry  itself,  more  pronounced  in  the  subjective  condi- 
tions of  the  lyric  than  in  the  epic  and  drama.  Such  a 
poem  as  Milton's  ' ^  II  Penseroso, "  Cowper's  ^^  Lines  To 
His  Mother,"  Keats'  "Eve  of  Saint  Agnes,"  Burns' 
''Cotter's  Saturday  Night,"  Mrs.  Browning's  ''Vision 
of  Poets, ' '  and  Lowell' s  ' '  Cathedral, ' '  are  examples  in 
point,  as  are  the  great  Elegies  of  English  and  American 
Verse,  wherein  the  soul  of  the  poet  is  intensely  and  de- 
voutly moved,  and  what  is  written  is  written  in  the 
minor  key,  in  the  subdued  spirit  of  sympathy  and  love 
and  sacred  meditation.  In  a  word,  whatever  the  rela- 
tion of  the  literary  and  the  civic,  the  literary  should 


I 


LITERATURE  AND   POLITICS  103 

always  be  seen  to  control  the  civic  and  should  never  be 
in  subjection  to  it.  It  is  of  literature  primarily  and  not 
of  politics  that  we  are  speaking,  and  literature,  as  such, 
in  its  specific  type  and  function,  should  strike  its  own 
dominant  note  in  every  sphere  that  it  enters. 

(&)  We  note,  further,  as  an  historical  principle,  and 
as  confirmed  by  our  reflections  hitherto,  that  Literature 
and  Politics  are  best  allied  within  the  domain  of  Free 
Governments — where  the  great  cardinal  principles  of 
individual  and  social  and  civic  liberty  prevail. 

We  speak,  in  these  days,  of  Democratic  Art.  There 
is  a  vital  sense  in  which  the  best  literature  is  democratic, 
begotten  of  wholesome  national  conditions  and  demand- 
ing free  scope  for  personal  inquiry  and  personal  expres- 
sion. It  is,  thus,  that  English  Letters  give  us  the  most 
fitting  examples  of  the  relation  we  have  been  studying, 
the  limited  monarchy  of  Great  Britain,  as  historically 
developed  and  applied,  furnishing  practically  all  the 
free  conditions  of  an  out-and-out  democracy.  So,  in 
Monarchical  Europe,  to  the  extent  that  Absolutism  pre- 
vails, as  in  Eussia  and  Spain,  are  the  most  wholesome 
political  literary  conditions  repressed,  and  the  utterances 
of  the  writer  made  to  pass  the  censorship  of  the  state, 
so  that  the  rapid  spread  of  republican  principles  in  Mon- 
archical Europe,  in  France  and  Switzerland,  in  Italy 
and  Germany  and  the  Netherlands,  is  full  of  promise  as 
to  the  literary  future  of  these  respective  countries  in 
shaping  political  policy  and  in  being  shaped  by  it  in 
turn. 

In  this  connection,  a  question  of  interest  arises — as  to 
the  Eelation  of  a  State  to  its  Authors — its  Literary  Men, 
whether  it  is  one  of  cooperative  sympathy  and  practical 
aid,  or  one  of  reserve  and  neglect  and  repression. 


104  LITERATURE 

The  important  subject  of  national  and  international 
copyright  is  here  involved;  the  subject  of  the  attitude  of 
the  state  toward  the  establishment,  maintenance  and  ex- 
tension of  Public  Libraries,  as,  also,  its  attitude  as  ex- 
pressed, practically  and  financially,  in  the  tariff  that  is 
levied  on  Books  and  Literary  Appliances.  The  attitude 
of  the  Court  of  Edward  III.  toward  Chaucer,  and  of  that 
of  Elizabeth,  toward  Spenser,  or  that  of  the  Stuarts  and 
Queen  Anne,  toward  the  respective  schools  of  letters, 
then  flourishing,  is  an  interesting  study  in  this  connec- 
tion, as  would  be  that  of  the  Phillips  in  Spain,  or  of  the 
Czar  in  Eussia.  The  Commonwealth  Eeaction  in  Eng- 
land was  as  much  a  literary  as  a  political  revolution. 
In  Monarchies  and  Eepublics  alike,  authors  have  a  right 
to  expect  a  generous  consideration  at  the  hands  of  the 
state,  which  they  in  turn  amply  repay  in  those  various 
ways  by  which  a  sure  and  able  literary  development  con- 
tributes to  national  honor,  and  well-being  and  national 
thought  and  taste. 

(c)  Hence,  a  final  suggestion,  as  to  the  Mutual  Influ- 
ences of  these  two  Departments  on  each  other,  for  the 
more  they  are  studied,  the  more  it  will  be  seen  that,  each, 
having,  as  we  have  seen,  a  sphere  of  its  own,  has  some- 
thing unique  to  contribute  to  the  other.     Tersely,  it  may 
be  said  that  the  office  of  Literature  in  Politics  is  to  Ele- 
vate and  Eefine  them,  and  that  of  Politics  in  Literature, 
to  Invigorate  and  Inspire  it.     The  presence,  in  the  Eng- 
lish Parliament  of  notable  men  of  letters,  and  its  organic 
relation  to  the  University  System  of  England  is  clearly  \ 
in  the  line  of  such  an  ennobling  and  purifying  influence,  | 
as  the  presence  in  English  Letters  of  distinguished  states-  j 
men  is  in  the  line  of  strength  and  impulse.     Hence,  in  j 
this  respect.  The  American  Congress  suffers  sadly  by  I 


LITEBATURE  AND   POLITICS  105 

comparison,  in  that  our  I^ational  and  State  Legislatures 
are  so  largely  made  up  of  politicians  only,  but  few  of 
whom  deserve  the  name  of  statesmen,  and  still  fewer,  the 
name  of  authors  or  men  of  letters.  The  present  com- 
position of  the  American  Senate  is  a  sufficient  commen- 
tary on  the  subject  in  hand. 

Just  here,  the  vital  relation  of  Political  and  Literary 
Eeform  is  evident,  and  the  peril  is  seen  in  the  open  fact 
of  the  Decline  of  Modern  Politics  from  a  civic  science  to 
a  civic  craft;  from  a  high  vocation  on  behalf  of  the  state 
to  a  personal  profession  on  behalf  of  the  incumbent.  On 
literary  grounds,  if  on  no  others,  National  Politics  should 
be  kept  pure,  as  on  patriotic  grounds  national  literature 
should  be  kept  pure. 

We  note,  moreover,  that  the  literature  of  the  Future, 
as  it  is  expressed  in  Free  States,  must  of  necessity  be- 
come, more  and  more,  a  School  of  Life — a  vital  and  prac- 
tical expression  of  the  best  thought  of  the  time.  ' '  The 
relation  of  an  author  to  his  age,"  says  Whipple,  ''  is  the 
most  important  of  his  life."  Even  Emerson,  transcen- 
dentalist  as  he  was,  insisted,  as  an  author,  on  the  dis- 
cussion of  Society  and  Social  Aims.  Whatever  has 
been  true  of  the  past,  the  time  has  now  come,  when  the 
author  and  the  man  must  be  expressed,  as  never  before, 
in  one  and  the  same  personality. 


CHAPTER    SEVEN 
LITERATURE    AND    LANGUAGE 

Professor  Earle,  iu  his  elaborate  treatise  on  Eng- 
lish Prose,  devotes  an  entire  chapter  to  what  he  calls, 
^^The  Bearings  of  Philology,"  its  bearings  as  a  science, 
a  study  and  a  practical  art  on  the  work  of  the  English 
writer  or  on  Literature,  in  general.  Thus  he  writes, 
''Philology  is  one  of  those  studies  which  must  be  taken 
into  account  in  a  treatise  which  has  English  Prose  for  its 
scope,  because  it  is  one  of  the  instruments  whereby  a 
man's  mind  may  be  made  better  acquainted  with  the 
material  out  of  which  Prose  is  constructed,"  and  he 
quotes  no  less  an  authority  than  Dr.  Johnson,  the  great 
lexicographer  and  essayist,  to  confirm  his  opinion.  He 
refers  to  the  enthusiasm  so  often  connected  with  philo- 
logical study  and  its  reflex  influence  for  good  upon  liter 
ary  work.  He  then  goes  on  to  speak  of  the  dislike  thati 
has  been  shown  to  Philology  by  men  of  letters,  and  ex 
plains  it  by  the  fact  that  every  new  science  has  to  pass 
through  such  destructive  criticism  before  its  claims  are 
fully  conceded.  Even  so  technical  a  study  as  Etymology, 
he  writes,  is  conducive  to  literary  uses  and  culture,  as 
begetting  in  the  writer  the  faculty  and  facility  of  verbal 
discrimination. 

It  must  be  acknowledged,  however,  that  the  drift  of 
opinion  is  adverse  to  Prof.  Earle  and  inclines  to  the  view 
taken  by  Dugald  Stewart,  that  such  a  pursuit  is  ''un- 
favorable to  elegance  of  composition." 

106 


LITEBATUBE  AND  LANGUAGE  107 

I  Thus  an  anonymous  author  writes, — "  The  Science  of 
Philology  has  made  itself  less  and  less  felt  in  literature. 
In  the  United  States,  there  is  not,  I  believe,  a  single 
philologian  who  is  a  powerful  writer,  and  this  is  the  case 
the  world  over,"  and  yet,  he  adds, —  '^ Modern  Philology 
which  now  regards  as  unscientific  anything  savoring  of 
the  Belles- Lettres,  owes  its  own  original  impulse  to  liter- 
ature, ' '  as  German  philology  is  indebted  to  Goethe,  and 
Diez,  founder  of  Eomance  philology,  to  Byron  and  his 
School. 

In  England,  the  discussion  has  been  agitated  with 
special  zeal,  as  seen  particularly  in  Collins'  volume  on 
^'English  Literature  at  the  Universities,"  wherein  he 
protests  against  the  prevailing  usages  as  to  English  in 
Oxford  and  Cambridge.  The  language  of  the  London 
Times,  in  commenting  on  the  treatise,  is  directly  in 
point,  as  it  says  of  it,  that  ' '  it  succeeds  in  showing  how 
the  too  exclusively  philological  study  of  modern  liter- 
atures at  present  patronized  by  the  universities  tends  to 
encourage  a  somewhat  pedantic  spirit  and  to  divest  liter- 
ature, as  such,  of  nearly  all  that  gives  it  its  abiding  hold 
on  the  human  mind." 

Thus  the  controversy  goes  on,  and  a  correct  view  of 
language  and  literature  as  related  to  each  other  is  in 
reality  essential  to  a  clear  understanding  of  either  alone, 
as  it,  also,  has  an  important  bearing  on  the  entire  sub- 
ject of  literary  art,  as  to  its  best  methods,  its  intrinsic 
nature  and  its  governing  ends. 

1.  We  notice,  first  of  all,  that  there  is  a  natural  and 
|j'    normal  relation  between  Language  and  Literature  and, 
hence,  that  literary  study,  in  some  well  understood  sense, 
must  be  linguistic. 


108  LITERATURE 

Literature  is  and  must  be  expressed  through  language 
as  a  medium.  It  is  the  resulting  product  and  visible 
form  of  such  expression,  careful  distinction  being  made 
between  the  product,  literature  itself,  and  the  agency  by 
which  it  is  produced,  language ;  or  to  state  it  in  the 
terms  of  logic,  the  first  cause  of  literature  is  the  author 
himself,  and  the  second  cause  is  the  language  in  which 
he  embodies  his  thought.  Hence,  language  is  a  means 
to  an  end  and  a  means  only,  and  is  never  to  be  con- 
founded with  the  end.  It  is  the  instrument  or  agent  by 
which  the  author  works,  and,  yet,  being  an  agent  of 
mind  and  not  of  inert  matter,  the  connection  between  it 
and  the  literature  which  it  expresses  must  be  a  vital  one 
rather  than  mechanical. 

If  we  inquire,  more  specifically,  as  to  the  ways  in 
which  language  enters  into  literary  study,  we  answer :  in 
diction  and  structure,  in  idiom  and  grammar  and  vocab- 
ulary and  synonym,  in  securing,  according  to  Swift, 
''the  right  word  in  the  right  place." 

Hence,  an  author  should  be  thoroughly  acquainted 
with  the  history  of  his  vernacular,  from  first  to  last ; 
with  its  grammatical  and  logical  structure  ;  with  its  con- 
stituent elements  as  native  and  foreign ;  with  its  capa- 
bilities as  a  written  and  spoken  tongue  ;  with  what  is 
called  the  genius  or  spirit  of  the  language,  lying  below 
any  verbal  usage  or  external  feature.  ^1 

More  than  this,  he  should  be  a  student  of  language  as  " 
well  as  of  a  language  or  his  own  language ;  should  be 
conversant  with  that  which  makes  language  what  it  is  ! 
as  a  means  of  communication  ;  should  clearly  under-   ; 
stand  linguistic  methods  and  uses  and  be  an  adept  in  the 
knowledge  and  use  of  words. 

AVhat  Gould  calls,    ''Good  English,"  expresses  very 


LITEBATUBE  AND  LANGUAGE  109 

tersely  this  close  relationship  of  language  and  literature. 
By  such  English  is  meant  that  which  is  good  in  the  lin- 
guistic sense  and  the  literary  sense  and  in  these  two 
senses  in  combination.  So  Dean  Alford,  in  his  ''Queen's 
English/'  as  Mr.  White  of  our  own  country,  in  his 
''Words  and  their  Uses,"  has  reference  to  this  unity  of 
the  agent  and  the  product,  of  language  and  literature  in 
one  expressed  form.  Archbishop  Trench  in  his  "  Study 
of  Words, ' '  writes  as  an  author  as  well  as  a  linguist, 
and  has  in  mind  the  best  literary  results  in  the  work  of 
those  who  study  him.  To  say — as  he  does — that  lan- 
guage is  "fossil  poetry"  and  "fossil  history"  is  but 
another  way  of  saying  that  it  is  fossil  literature  and  is 
not  to  be  studied  as  a  something  altogether  apart  from 
such  literature  and  for  its  own  sake.  Hence,  the  authors 
of  any  nation  are  accepted  as  the  standard  in  the  use  of 
their  vernacular.  English  authors  are  the  accepted  au- 
thority as  to  English  Language  usage,  so  that  here,  if 
nowhere  else,  the  bond  of  connection  is  seen. 

Mr.  Whipple,  in  his  volume  on  "  Literature  and  Life," 
in  a  critique  on  Eoget's  "Thesaurus  of  English  Words," 
takes  occasion  to  discuss  the  subject  of  the  "Use  and 
Misuse  of  Words,"  and  to  insist  that  their  right  use  is 
found  in  detecting  and  developing  their  literary  char- 
acter and  their  abuse  in  neglecting  this.  As  he  says, 
' '  Expression  is  thought  in  the  words  and  through  the 
words  and  not  thought  and  the  words  " ;  in  fine,  language 
has  a  relation  to  letters  and  letters  to  language. 

Authors  may  be  classified  as  to  the  way  in  which  they 
have  observed  or  violated  this  principle.  Archbishop 
Trench  himself  is  a  notable  example  of  a  literary  linguist, 
of  a  man  who  has  used  language  as  a  medium  to  liter- 
ature and  that  only,  so  that  his  numerous  publications 


no  LITERATURE 

in  the  sphere  of  English  Literature  are  in  reality  liter- 
ature expressed  in  good  English. 

George  P.  Marsh  and  F.  A.  March  are,  also,  to  be 
cited  as  prominent  examples  of  the  principle  before  us. 
Acknowledged  by  all  authorities  as  scientific  English 
Philologists,  their  English,  apart  from  manuals  designed 
to  be  technical,  is  literary  English.  The  same  is  true  of 
Whitney,  of  America ;  and  Miiller,  of  England  ;  and  of 
Jacob  Grimm,  of  Germany,  and  of  all  those  professional 
teachers  of  language  who  have  written  in  a  literary  spirit. 
No  better  instances  of  this  could  be  found  than  are  found 
in  that  long  list  of  college  and  university  professors  in 
England  and  America  and  on  the  continent,  who,  while 
devoted  to  the  technical  study  and  teaching  of  their  re- 
spective vernaculars,  have  written  as  authors  as  well  as 
linguists.  So,  Curtius  and  Jebb  and  Jowett  and  Blackie 
and  Earle  and  Morley.  Special  emphasis  has  been  laid 
upon  the  fact  that  the  late  Ernest  Eenan,  of  France, 
the  great  Orientalist  and  biblical  critic,  did  an  invalu- 
able work  on  behalf  of  the  French  Language  and  Lit- 
erature. A  master  of  the  Semitic  tongues  and  a  mas- 
ter of  his  vernacular,  he  spoke  and  wrote  the  choicest 
French,  and  as  if  he  had  never  made  language  a  study 
for  any  other  than  literary  purposes.  An  acute  and 
a  profound  philologist,  the  scholastic  side  of  his  lan- 
guage study  was  concealed  in  his  popular  writings  and 
he  penned  his  thoughts  with  the  freedom  and  natural- 
ness of  a  child. 

Lowell  and  Longfellow,  of  our  own  country,  are  wit- 
nesses in  point,  especially,  as  for  years  they  were  profes- 
sional teachers  of  language  from  the  critical  and  exeget-  . 
ical  side,  and  we  might  expect  to  find  in  their  pages  I 
prosaic  evidence  of  such  a  vocation.    There  is  nothing, 


LITEBATUBE  AND   LANGUAGE  111 

however,  of  this.  "Wealth  and  accuracy  of  linguistic 
knowledge  are  displayed,  but  always  presented  in  any 
hut  philological  form,  so  that  the  author  as  an  author  is 
ever  kept  prominent  above  the  etymologist. 

There  is  then  a  true  nexus,  a  priori  and  historical,  be- 
tween Language  and  Literature.  Whatever  their  differ- 
ences may  be,  there  is  a  common  middle  ground  where 
they  meet  and  interact,  and  he  is  the  true  author  and  the 
wise  linguist  who  recognizes  it. 

2.  It  is  now  in  place  to  note  the  dangerous  extreme  to 
which  the  linguistic  study  of  literature  may  be  and  has 
been  carried. 

The  definite  form  which  the  discussion  assumes  at  this 
point  is,  shall  Literature  be  studied  mainly  on  literary 
methods,  as  a  literary  product,  or  mainly  or  equally  on  lin- 
guistic methods,  as  a  linguistic  product,  our  present  ob- 
ject being  to  insist  upon  the  former  as  the  preferable  and 
only  legitimate  method  and,  conversely,  to  condemn  the 
latter. 

(a)  If  we  seek  the  evidence  of  this  extreme  philolog- 
ical tendency,  we  find  it,  first  of  all,  in  Literary  Criticism, 
fast  assuming  the  form  of  linguistic  criticism.  An  author's 
language  is  examined  with  painstaking  minuteness.  Each 
word  of  his  vocabulary  is  taken  by  itself  and  made  the 
subject  of  miscroscopic  inspection  and  dissection,  as  if 
any  author,  writing  from  the  purely  literary  side,  could 
be  expected  to  abide  such  a  test.  The  literary  critic,  so 
called,  is  thus  seen  to  narrow  his  area  of  investigation 
until  he  becomes  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  professional 
verbalist ;  a  mere  analyzer  of  words  and  phrases  ;  work- 
ing in  his  verbal  laboratory  as  the  botanist  and  chemist 
work  in  their  scientific  laboratories.     As  he  opens  a 


112  LITERATURE 

volume  of  prose  or  poetry,  the  questions  that  are  upper- 
most are  not  the  old  questions  of  style  and  taste,  senti- 
ment and  spirit  and  esthetic  law,  but  the  newer  questions 
of  roots,  derivations,  prefixes  and  suffixes,  text  and  con- 
text, past  meanings  and  possible  meanings,  the  balancing 
of  conflicting  opinions  as  to  the  use  of  terms  and  the  force 
of  particles,  and  a  score  of  other  related  questions  as  to 
the  purely  verbal  art  which  the  author  displays  or  fails 
to  display.  Precisely  that  is  done  which  the  French 
Academy  of  the  time  of  Eichelieu  at  length  succeeded 
in  doing,  and  which  the  unworthy  imitators  of  Goethe 
and  Schiller  succeeded  in  doing,  in  Germany,  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  Literary  criticism  is  made  so  lin- 
guistic that  a  Moliere  must  protest  against  the  formalism 
of  a  Boileau  and  insist  that  the  examination  of  author- 
ship is  more  than  a  mere  study  of  words. 

(&)  This  tendency  is,  also,  especially  visible  in  our 
literary  manuals.  Text-books  in  literature  are  now  pre- 
pared for  schools  and  colleges,  more  and  more,  from  the 
linguistic  side.  The  criticism  of  text,  the  notes,  explana- 
tions, definitions  and  critical  data  are  prepared  and 
presented  mainly  with  the  idea  of  philological  precision 
and  of  cultivating  in  the  student  verbal  aptitude.  The 
attention  of  the  student  is  held  so  intently  to  the  line 
and  the  letter,  to  nice  discriminations,  to  the  history  of 
critical  opinion  and  disputed  points  of  text,  that  but  lit- 
tle time  is  left  to  take  a  comprehensive  view  of  the 
author's  work  as  a  specifically  literary  product.  One  of 
the  best  features  of  Mr.  Eolfe's  editions  of  the  Shake- 
sperian  Plays  is  seen  in  the  fact,  that  he  has  thus  far 
resisted,  to  a  good  degree,  this  technical  process,  so  that, 
while  securing  the  results  of  accurate  scholarship  along 
the  lines  of  philology,  he  has  also  been  mindful  of  the 


LITEBATUBE  AND  LANGUAGE  113 

higher  interests  of  dramatic  literature.  No  careful  stu- 
dent of  English  literary  manuals  can  fail  to  note  the 
growing  influence  of  this  j^hilological  passion,  until  it 
has  become  in  certain  quarters  a  cult  or  craze,  if  not  an 
editorial  hobby.  Undoubtedly,  the  increasing  attention 
to  Old  and  Middle  English  is  in  part  accountable  for 
this,  it  being  forgotten  that  while  the  study  of  Old  Eng- 
lish must  be  mainly  philological,  that  of  the  New 
English,  as  Oliphant  calls  it,  need  not  be.  Because  we 
must  study  '^ Beowulf"  and  the  ^'Ormulum"  as  lan- 
guage-texts, this  is  not  to  say  that  Ben  Jonson  and 
Milton  must  be  so  studied,  living,  as  they  did,  in  specif- 
ically literary  eras.  Even  so  early  an  author  as  Chau- 
cer, standing  at  the  opening  of  national  English,  should 
be  studied,  chiefly,  from  the  side  of  literature.  Surely 
the  '' Canterbury  Tales"  were  not  written  for  a  text- 
book in  English  Etymology,  and  only  to  afford  a  basis 
for  the  comparison  of  fourteenth -century  English  with 
that  of  to-day.  No  English  author  has  been  so  misused 
as  Chaucer  at  this  point,  for  his  verse  is  as  fresh  and  as 
free  as  the  air  we  breathe,  full  of  the  very  juice  and 
marrow  of  literature.  Technical  criticism  has  its  place. 
Editors  must  see  that  we  have  a  correct  text  and  an  in- 
telligent interpretation.  This  secured,  however,  the 
author  should  be  allowed  to  talk  to  us  in  his  own  way 
and  not  always  through  the  mouth  of  the  scribe.  If  lit- 
erary students  are  accused  of  becoming  fastidious,  never 
so  happy  as  when  they  find  a  colon  where  there  should 
be  a  comma,  and  quite  silent  as  to  the  genius  of  the 
author  behind  the  text,  we  must  lay  the  blame  largely 
at  the  door  of  this  etymological  method,  by  which  authors 
are  examined  as  those  who  have  left  so  many  volumes  of 
verse  and  prose  for  the  study  of  the  linguist,  and  who 


114  LITEBATUBE 

deserve,  at  their  death,  what  Browning  calls — '^The 
Grammarian's  Funeral." 

In  a  word,  these  ''anatomists  of  literature,"  as  Mr. 
White  styles  them,  have  reduced  literature  to  the  plane 
of  a  commentary,  and  Addison  and  Milton  and  Macaulay 
and  Tennyson  must  be  so  overburdened  with  Notes  and 
Foot- Notes,  Addenda  and  Emendations,  that  one  is  at  a 
loss  to  know,  meanwhile,  just  what  he  is  studying — lit- 
erature, grammar,  a  lexicon  or  a  syllabus. 

It  is  to  this  that  Prof.  Moulton  refers  in  his  volume  on 
"Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatic  Artist,"  as  he  says — "The 
idea,  I  believe,  prevails  that  anything  like  the  discussion 
of  literary  characters  or  dramatic  effect  is  out  of  place 
in  an  educational  work,  is  indeed,  too  indefinite  to  be 
examined  on,"  and  he  adds,  by  way  of  refutation,  that 
he  has  had  ' '  ten  years'  experience  in  teaching  literature 
apart  from  philology." 

The  influence  of  Germany,  as  a  philosophical  and  lit- 
erary center,  has  undoubtedly  been  powerful  in  this 
direction.  The  German  mind,  naturally  philosophic, 
has  easily  passed  over  from  a  safe  and  moderate  philo- 
sophic method  to  that  of  a  hypertechnical  and  abstruse 
one.  Philosophy  itself  is  presented  more  in  the  form  of 
a  logical  technique  than  in  a  readable  and  attractive 
method.  Theology  is  studied  and  presented  from  the 
side  of  dogma  and  the  speculative  reason  rather  than  in 
practical  forms  for  practical  ends. 

Language  is  pursued  from  the  scientific  side  as  an  end 
in  itself  and  one  of  the  many  topics  for  analysis  and 
erudite  study,  so  that,  when  literature  is  made  the  sub- 
ject of  investigation,  the  method  of  the  schools  is  easily 
transferred.  Style,  taste,  sentiment  and  final  objective 
effect  are  ignored  or  underrated  and  the  text  of  the 


f 


LITERATURE  AND  LANGUAGE  115 

author  is  the  subject-matter,  and  this,  despite  the  fact, 
that  the  common  folk  of  Germany  are  of  simple  tastes 
and  are  quick  to  discern  and  enjoy  the  strictly  literary 
quality  of  authors.  There  is  no  nation  in  Europe  where 
the  commonalty  so  appreciate  the  simple  folk-lore,  the 
national  ballads  and  tales,  where  such  a  poet  as  Schiller 
is  more  enjoyed.  If  Goethe  is  the  author  of  German 
scholars,  and  ''Faust,"  especially  in  its  second  and  more 
abstruse  part,  captivates  them,  Schiller  and  Herder  and 
Heine  and  Eichter  and  Hans  Sachs  are  the  authors  of  the 
people.  It  is  a  singular  and  somewhat  inexplicable  fact 
that,  when  the  influence  of  Germany  in  the  eighteenth 
century  came  in  upon  England,  it  came  in  the  twofold 
form  of  impulse  and  criticism,  producing,  on  the  one 
hand,  a  genuine  literary  awakening  and,  on  the  other, 
an  undue  emphasis  of  the  abstract  and  technical  in 
literary  art. 

It  was  a  romantic  and  a  classical  revival  in  one.  The 
influence  of  the  French  critical  school  was  somewhat 
similar,  as  seen  in  Pope  and  the  correct  authors  in  the 
Augustan  Age,  while,  as  the  science  of  Modern  Philology 
has  advanced  with  unwonted  rapidity  from  its  crude 
beginnings  to  its  perfected  form,  literature  has  for  the 
time  been  somewhat  in  abeyance,  and  reduced,  at  the 
best,  to  a  science  of  expression. 

One  of  the  strongest  proofs  of  the  essential  unsound- 
ness of  this  textual  method  in  literature  is  seen  in  the 
fact,  that  it  prevails  in  eras  of  literary  decline,  partly, 
as  the  cause  and,  partly,  as  the  consequence  of  such  a 
decline. 

This  is  seen  very  clearly  in  the  literary  decadence  be- 
tween Milton  and  Addison,  when  the  artificial  canons  of 
the  time  restricted,  in  large  measure,  the  open  progress 


116  LITEEATUBE 

of  literary  thought  and  taste  by  substituting  verbal  nice- 
ties for  poetic  inspiration.  No  amount  of  high  eulogy 
by  such  a  critic  as  Mr.  Gosse  can  suflBce  to  redeem  such 
a  literature  in  the  eyes  of  discerning  students.  True, 
indeed,  Modern  Philology  had  not  taken  on,  at  this 
time,  its  present  expansive  forms,  but  the  critical  and 
exegetical  method  had  already  appeared  in  extreme 
form,  even  in  so  representative  an  author  as  Dryden,  and 
the  encroachments  of  the  linguistic  on  the  literary  had 
already  begun.  Dryden' s  fame  as  a  prose  writer  rests 
mainly  on  what  are  known  as  his  ''Critical  Prefaces," 
in  which  criticism  often  became  too  textual  and  technical 
and  served  as  such  to  modify  and  lessen  literary  effects. 
"With  the  second  and  third  rate  authors  of  the  day,  this 
error  was,  of  course,  pushed  to  even  more  dangerous 
extremes.  Injurious  wherever  found,  it  is  especially  so 
in  the  sphere  of  verse,  as  seen  in  the  couplets  and  epistles 
of  Pope.  What  De  Quincey  has  called  ' '  Mechanology ' ' 
took  the  place  of  ''Organology" — the  letter  ruled  the 
spirit,  and  correctness  of  diction,  structure  and  versifica- 
tion was  the  final  aim.  By  this  process,  literature  is  re- 
duced to  a  something  that  is  neither  strictly  philological 
nor  literary,  but  is  an  arbitrary  compromise  between 
them,  and  fails,  thereby,  of  producing  the  best  effects  of 
either. 

What  we  have  called  the  differentia  of  literature,  its 
ideal  or  idealistic  element,  is  hereby  eliminated,  and 
hence  it  is,  that  poetry  is  most  of  all  the  sufferer,  as  rep- 
resenting the  imaginative  side  of  literature,  the  tendency 
being  to  reduce  all  its  forms  to  the  didactic,  the  least 
poetic  of  all,  or  to  make  the  dividing  line  between  verse 
and  prose  almost  a  vanishing  factor. 

The  "Faerie  Queene,"    "Othello"    and    "Comus" 


LITEBATVBE  AND  LANGUAGE  117 

must  thus  yield  to  Pope's  ^' Essay  on  Criticism"  or 
"Essay  on  Man,"  while,  even  in  the  province  of  prose 
expression,  the  lighter  and  more  flexible  forms  of  narra- 
tion and  description  and  miscellany  are  made  subservient 
to  what  may  be  termed  the  educational  and  disciplinary, 
the  least  literary  forms. 

If  these  things  are  so,  then  it  follows  as  a  safe  and 
practical  instruction  that  Language  should  be  taught, 
in  the  main,  on  the  side  and  in  the  light  of  its  literature, 
and  not  as  an  end  in  itself. 

There  are  exceptional  instances,  indeed,  where  the  aim 
is  purely  technical  and  scholastic,  and  where  the  method 
of  study  as  minute  and  detailed  may  be  justified  as  such, 
but  for  the  purposes  of  the  student  of  literature,  the 
literature  should  always  take  the  precedence. 

We  are  living  in  the  day  of  excited  discussion  as  to 
the  exact  influence  of  classical  teaching  and  study,  in 
their  relation  to  the  Modern  Languages  of  Continental 
Europe  and  the  vernacular  English.  Must  the  classics 
go,  or,  more  specifically,  must  the  Greek  go,  are  the 
questions  mooted.  It  is  not  in  place  here  to  enter  upon 
this  discussion,  but  it  is  in  place  to  say,  that  much  of 
this  agitation  has  been  occasioned  by  the  fact  that,  in 
the  majority  of  instances,  these  older  languages  have 
been  taught  purely  or  mainly  from  the  linguistic  side, 
with  little  or  no  reference  to  their  literary  nature  and 
qualities.  Hence,  the  teaching  has  been  prosaic,  hyper- 
technical  and  tedious,  instead  of  being  instinct  with  per- 
sonality and  life.  In  this  respect,  these  languages  have 
justified  their  name,  The  Dead  Languages,  and  have 
thus  occasioned  a  reaction  that  has  as  yet  by  no  means 
spent  its  force.  Even  Modern  Tongues  may  be  pre- 
sented and  pursued  on  this  soulless  method,  as  made  up 


118  LITERATURE 

merely  of  grammar  and  lexicon;  of  roots  and  stems;  of 
particles  and  vocables,  and  not  as  the  embodiment  of 
modern  thought  and  taste.  It  is  precisely  this  to  which 
Whipple  refers  in  his  invective  against  words  for  words' 
sake,  and  on  which  Emerson  lays  such  emphasis  as  he 
contends  for  naturalness  and  strength  in  literary  art. 

An  able  paper  on  '^Philology  and  Literature  in 
American  Colleges  and  Universities ' '  goes  so  far  as  to 
say,  by  way  of  challenge,  that  there  are  not  a  half  dozen 
institutions  in  America,  where  it  can  be  said  that  Litera- 
ture is  taught  as  literature,  the  implication  being,  that 
it  is  taught  as  Philology,  as  a  body  of  words  and  sen- 
tences adjusted  on  correct  linguistic  principles  and  noth- 
ing more.  The  writer  pleads  for  the  diffusion  of  a 
better  method,  the  subordination  of  language  to  litera- 
ture, if  so  be  American  students  are  to  perpetuate  the 
literary  work  and  spirit  of  the  earlier  school  of  au- 
thors. 

No  better  example  of  this  higher  method  can  be  found 
in  American  Letters  than  that  furnished  us  in  the  old 
Knickerbocker  School  of  Bryant  and  his  friends,  in  the 
writings  of  Cooper  and  Dana  and  Drake  and  Halleck  and 
Morris  and  Paulding  and  Washington  Irving.  Of  these 
writings,  as  a  class,  that  can  be  said  that  Wilson  says  of 
the  '^ Salmagundi"  Essays,  that  they  are  ''sunny  and 
good  natured.''  Irving  himself  is  a  brilliant  example  of 
this  school  of  life,  where  literature  was  studied  and  pub- 
lished as  literature  and  for  literary  ends  with  no  thought 
of  any  sj)ecifically  critical  purpose.  Irving' s  ''Sketch 
Book ' '  and  Bryant' s  ' '  Thanatopsis ' '  would  have  long 
since  passed  into  oblivion,  had  such  a  method  charac- 
terized them. 

Such  a  method  is  especially  needful  in  the  present 


LITERATURE  AND  LANGUAGE  119 

age,  not  only  because  the  science  of  Philology  is  making 
such  advances  and  is  encroaching  more  and  more  on 
literary  domain,  but  because  other  influences  as  well  are 
working  in  the  direction  of  the  unliterary.  A  bold  and 
gross  industrialism  is  militating,  as  far  as  it  goes,  against 
a  high  type  of  literary  taste  and  all  literary  forces  are  to 
be  mustered  to  resist  it. 

There  seems,  moreover,  to  be  even  among  authors  a 
satisfaction  of  scholarly  ambition  when  letters  are  ap- 
proached from  the  scholarly  side,  and  the  critical  method 
in  prose  and  verse  is  emphasized.  They  thus  seem  to 
separate  themselves,  as  they  supj)ose,  from  the  vast  horde 
of  scribblers  who  write  superficially  because  uncritically, 
and  have  not  the  learning  or  insight  to  show  in  their 
writings  that  they  understand  the  scientific  meaning  of 
the  words  they  use. 

This  is  a  plausible  error  in  that  it  is  forgotten  that  lit- 
erature may  be  philosophic  without  being  technical ; 
learned  without  being  pedantic,  and  scholarly  without 
being  scholastic. 

Language,  then,  is  one  thing  and  literature  another. 
Whatever  their  relation,  their  methods  and  aims  are  di- 
verse, and  can  not  be  safely  made  to  coalesce.  Literature 
is  a  verbal  art,  but  it  is  a  something  more.  It  is  the  lan- 
guage of  the  author's  vernacular,  but  a  something  more. 
It  must  be  grammatically  and  linguistically  correct,  but 
far  more  than  this.  It  is  an  assemblage  of  terms  and 
phrases  and  constructions,  but  far  more.  Literature  can 
not  be  reduced  to  a  verbal  exposition,  and  when  Dowden 
and  Mabie  and  other  critics  speak  of  the  interpretation 
of  literature,  or  of  literature  as  an  interpretation,  in- 
finitely more  is  meant  than  that  literature  is  merely  a 
verbal  exegesis. 


120  LITERATURE 

'■ '  Thoughts  that  breathe  and  words  that  burn ' '  can 
not  always  satisfy  the  severe  demands  of  the  philologian, 
but  they  are  [^none  the  less  the  content  and  soul  of  the 
best  literature.  There  is  nothing  better  in  literature 
than  the  spirit  of  life,  so  that  it  becomes  to  all  who  read 
it  a  mental  and  an  emotional  stimulus.  Much  discussion 
is  being  given  at  present  to  the  question  whether  or  not 
literature  m  a  truly  disciplinary  study  and  pursuit.  If 
by  this  is  meant  that  it  is  to  be  disciplinary  as  the  study 
of  science  or  mathematics  or  metaphysics  is  such,  then, 
we  submit,  that  to  make  it  such  would  be  to  modify  it 
from  its  original  status  and  purpose.  Literature  is  not 
a  branch  of  pedagogics,  nor  was  it  ever  designed  to  be  a 
discipline  in  the  sense  in  which  what  are  called  the  dis- 
ciplinary or  educational  branches  are  such,  and  here  we 
meet  one  of  the  main  differences  between  language  and 
literature.  | 

Language,  as  such,  is  a  disciplinary  study — so  under- 1 
stood  and  so  pursued,  its  object  being,  to  cultivate  what  | 
may  be  called,  the  language  nature  or  faculty.     It  has  to  j 
do  therefore  with  the  discrimination  of  words,  with  their 
analysis  and  exposition,  with  structure  and  lexicography,  | 
and  it  is  only  when  studied  and  used  by  the  author  that 
they  subordinate  their  educational  element  to  that  which 
has  to  do  with  art  and  taste  and  final  effect ;  with  imag- 
ination and  feeling  and  beauty.     Literature  is  thus  a 
science  and  a  philosophy,  but  is  also  an  inspiration.     It 
must  be  developed  through  language  as  a  medium,  but 
has,  also,  to  do  with  impassioned  thought,  with  imagin- 
ative outlook,  with  sublimity  of  word  and  phrase.     It  is 
a  recorded  text  for  comment,  but,  also,  an  embodied  soul 
for  appreciative  study  and  enjoyment.     It  is  a  creative 
as  well  as  a  constructive  art,  a  sphere  in  which  ''the 


LITEBATUBE  AND  LANGUAGE  121 

vision  and  the  faculty  divine ' '  may  have  fitting  scope 
and  reach  their  most  pronounced  results. 

One  of  the  somewhat  puzzling  spectacles  of  modern 
times  is  brought  to  view  in  the  apparent  decrease  of  lit- 
erary insight  and  spirit  as  linguistic  insight  and  spirit 
increase,  forcing  the  question  upon  us  whether,  after  all, 
there  are  elements  existing  that  make  them  mutually 
exclusive. 

The  cases  in  which  there  goes  on  a  corresponding  de- 
velopment are  historically  rare.  If  the  authors  quoted 
— such  as  Marsh  and  Eenan,  are  examples  of  the  union 
and  interaction  of  the  two,  they  are  but  notable  excep- 
tions to  the  general  principle,  so  that  it  is  now  scarcely 
expected  that  they  shall  coexist.  Such  a  divorce  is  un- 
scientific and  unnatural  and  is  begotten  of  that  tendency 
to  extremes  so  potent  in  human  history,  and,  hence,  the 
difficulty  of  men  of  letters  as  of  linguists  in  minimizing 
differences  and  magnifying  common  elements,  if  so  be 
that  the  highest  influence  both  of  language  and  litera- 
ture may  be  felt.  The  few  representative  men  who  have 
effected  such  a  combination  are  sufficient  to  prove  its 
possibility  and  open  the  way  for  a  more  general  illustra- 
tion of  it. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  however,  literature  can  not  safely 
become  philological  in  any  professional  and  pedagogic 
sense,  while,  at  the  same  time,  able  and  ready  to  use  in 
its  own  way  all  the  latest  and  best  results  of  philological 
criticism. 

The  author  has  to  do  with  words  only  as  they  are  the 
common  carrier  of  thought  and  life,  of  faith  and  truth, 
of  insight  and  outlook,  of  the  spiritual  and  eternal  in 
human  character.  When  Carlyle  tells  us  that  ' '  Litera- 
ture is  the  thought  of  thinking  souls, "  it  is  but  another 


122  LITERATURE 

wsLj  of  saying  that  literature  is  the  expression  of  the 
mind,  mediated  through  the  entire  nature  of  the  man — 
his  imagination,  feelings,  and  taste.  Literature  is  the 
expression  of  human  personality,  the  written  embodi- 
ment, in  artistic  form,  of  the  intellect  and  life  of  the 
race. 


CHAPTER    EIGHT 

LITERATURE    AND    LITERARY    CRITICISM 

We  are  living  in  a  critical  age,  an  age  of  criticism,  in- 
duced, partly,  by  the  fact  of  tlie  rapid  multiplication  of 
books  which  are  supposed  to  form  the  occasion  and  basis 
for  the  critical  art  and,  partly,  by  certain  manifest  liter- 
ary tendencies  in  the  direction  of  technique  and  the  study 
of  literary  theory,  the  increasing  interest  in  what  may  be 
called  the  speculative  side  of  literature.  Hence,  the 
growth  of  critical  bibliography,  sufficient  in  itself  to  con- 
stitute a  library  ;  books  about  books  5  authors  about  au- 
thors. We  have,  thus,  the  Principia  of  Literature,  as 
Newton  prepared  a  '^Principia"  of  Science.  Such  a 
treatise  as  Saintsbury's  '^History  of  Literary  Criticism" 
or  Galley  and  Scott's  ''Methods  and  Materials  of  Liter- 
ary Criticism ' '  is  sufficient  to  reveal  the  wide  province 
now  covered  by  critical  science  as  applied  to  letters,  the 
large  number  of  students  engaged  in  its  study,  and  the 
increasing  demand,  on  the  part  of  the  reading  public,  for 
fuller  instruction  along  this  specific  line  of  intellectual 
effort.  In  so  far  as  English  Literature  is  concerned,  this 
revived  activity  dates  back  to  the  days  of  Matthew  Ar- 
nold, while  a  corresponding  general  movement  in  Euro- 
pean Letters  may  be  noted.  Nor  is  it  meant  by  this  that 
Literary  Criticism  is  now  pursued  abstractly  as  a  science 
and  for  its  own  ends,  quite  irrespective  of  the  authorship 
that  lies  behind  it  and  which  has,  indeed,  induced  it ; 
that  a  school  of  criticism  has  arisen  for  speculative  pur- 
poses only,  and  as  a  kind  of  diversion  from  the  more  seri- 

123 


124  LITEBATVBE 

ous  and  original  work  of  literary  production.  On  the 
contrary,  the  renewed  interest  is  a  thoroughly  normal 
one,  the  necessary  expression  of  authorship  itself,  and 
for  a  better  understanding  of  its  merits  and  defects.  It 
is  to  the  special  praise  of  Arnold,  and  of  the  living  critic 
Brunetiere,  that,  in  their  view,  criticism  is  but  a  means 
to  an  end,  and  can  never  be  safely  allowed  to  stand  upon 
its  own  merits. 

CRITICISM 

We  are  dealing,  first  of  all,  with  Criticism,  as  distinct 
from  any  other  form  or  branch  of  literary  study  with 
which  it  might  be  confounded,  such  as,  narrative,  de- 
scriptive and  forensic  discourse,  or  miscellany,  in  its 
most  general  sense.  We  speak,  and  speak  correctly,  of 
critical  miscellany,  as  distinct  from  that  which  is  uncrit- 
ical or  non-critical.  Hence,  what  are  known  as  sketches, 
history,  travels,  written  forensic  addresses,  and  the  vari- 
ous types  of  prose  fiction  are  examples  of  non-critical 
literature.  Thus,  Masson  classifies  the  writings  of  De 
Quincey  into  three  generic  divisions,  the  second  of  which 
is  called,  '■ '  The  Speculative,  Didactic  and  Critical, ' '  in 
which  division  these  three  terms  are  used  synonymously. 
Dryden'  s  ' '  Critical  Prefaces ' '  are  thus  distinctly  marked 
from  other  British  Miscellany,  as  Addison's  review,  in 
the  ''Spectator,"  of  Milton's  ''Paradise  Lost"  is  dis- 
tinguished from  the  more  general  papers  of  the  series. 
In  this  sense,  American  authors,  such  as  Lowell,  and 
British  authors,  such  as  Coleridge,  have  written  criticism. 

LITERARY  CRITICISM 

Still  further,  the  subject  before  us  is.  Literary  Criti- 
cism, as  distinct  from  that  which  is  philosophic,  scien- 


LITEEATUBE  AND   CRITICISM  125 

tific,  theological,  or  political.  Such  critiques  as  Addi- 
son's, on,  '^Tragedy  and  Comedy,"  or  Johnson's,  on, 
'  '■  The  Lives  of  The  English  Poets, ' '  or  Lamb' s,  on,  ' '  The 
Artificial  Comedy  of  The  Last  Century,"  are  thus  liter- 
ary as  contrasted  with  such  dissertations  as  De  Quin- 
cey's,  ''Political  Parties  of  Modern  England,"  or  Mat- 
thew Arnold's  ''God  and  The  Bible,"  or  Lowell's 
"Democracy,"  or  with  any  discussions  in  which  the 
taste  and  artistic  quality  are  not  prominent.  Linguis- 
tic criticism  is  one  thing;  Literary  criticism  is  another. 
While,  here  and  there,  an  author  such  as,  George  P. 
Marsh,  or  Francis  A.  March,  or  the  late  scholarly  Whit- 
ney, or  Earle,  or  Arnold,  has  written  on  philology  in  a  lit- 
erary way,  the  instances  are  so  rare  as  not  to  invalidate  the 
principle  stated.  So,  forensic  criticism  is  not,  as  a  rule, 
literary,  tho  Burke  has  written  on  British  Politics,  and 
Bryce,  on  American  Politics,  in  a  literary  manner.  Even 
"speculative"  authorship,  as  De  Quincey  uses  the  term 
to  indicate  the  metaphysical  and  technical  in  the  sphere 
of  mental  science,  is  not,  generally,  literary,  even  tho 
Berkeley  and  Cousin  and  Descartes  have  written  philos- 
ophy on  literary  methods.  When  De  Quincey  writes  on 
The  Human  Brain,  and  on  Plato's  "Republic,"  and  on 
Kant's  theories,  as  a  metaphysician,  he  is  not  writing 
distinctive  literary  criticism,  as  when  he  writes  on 
Carlyle  and  Goldsmith  and  Goethe. 

Jonathan  Swift,  in  his  "Tale  of  a  Tub,"  writes  of 
three  different  kinds  of  critics — those  who  collect  and 
systematize  the  principles  of  esthetic  art  for  the  guidance 
of  others;  those  who  devote  themselves  to  the  restoration 
of  learning  from  the  "graves  and  dust  of  manuscripts  " ; 
and  those  whom  he  calls  ' '  the  third  and  noblest  sort,  the 
true  critics"  whose  mission  is  "to  travel  through  the 


126  LITEEATUBE 

vast  world  of  writings"  and  discuss  the  qualities  of 
books  and  authors.  However  these  orders  of  critics  may 
differ,  as  to  emphasizing  merits  or  defects  or  investigat- 
ing ancient  or  modern  authorship,  they  are  alike  in  be- 
ing literary  in  the  sense  that  we  are  pressing. 

As  to  the  different  species  of  literary  criticism  itself, 
there  need  be  no  prolonged  discussion,  even  tho  some 
variety  of  opinion  exists  regarding  them.  Masson,  in 
his  classification  of  De  Quincey'  s  works,  already  cited, 
separates  his  critical  writings  from  those  that  he  calls — 
descriptive,  biographical,  historical  and  imaginative, 
and,  yet,  each  of  these  divisions  of  authorship  offers,  in 
a  true  sense,  some  sphere  for  literary  judgment,  inas- 
much as  in  type  and  spirit  such  forms  of  authorship  are 
literary.  Hence,  we  have  what  may  justly  be  called, 
descriptive  criticism,  as  in  De  Quincey' s  Sketches  of 
Coleridge,  "Wordsworth  and  other  authors,  and  in  such 
modern  American  writers  as  Holmes,  Warner  and  Cur- 
tis. While  in  these  examples  criticism  is  presented  in 
its  most  general  and  popular  form,  quite  divested  of  any- 
thing like  the  didactic,  analytic  and  logical,  such  litera- 
ture has  still  enough  of  the  judicial  in  it  to  give  it  the 
character  of  a  running  comment  on  books  and  authors. 
Hence,  also,  we  speak,  and  correctly  so,  of  historical 
criticism,  not  meaning  thereby  a  criticism  of  history  but 
a  literary  criticism  historical  in  its  form  and  spirit. 
Writers  in  the  special  sphere  of  the  history  of  literature, 
such  as  Hallam  and  Craik,  Morley  and  Tyler,  have 
illustrated  this  type,  or  De  Quincey,  in  such  papers  as 
' '  The  Caesars, "  ' '  Charlemagne, "  ' '  The  Essenes ' '  and 
'■ '  The  Pagan  Oracles. ' '  Even  within  the  sphere  of  the 
imaginative,  a  kind  of  criticism  enters,  as  is  plainly 
evinced  in  the  accepted  phrase,  poetic  criticism,  as  dis- 


LITEBATUEE  AND   CRITICISM  127 

tinct  from  that  which  is  philosophic,  historical  and 
didactic.  The  phrase,  esthetic  critisism,  at  present  so 
current,  is  so  far  widened  as  often  to  include  every  form 
and  application  of  the  examination  of  literature,  tho 
specifically  used  to  apply  to  that  order  of  examination 
which  views  the  subject  in  hand  as  a  work  of  art  in  its 
relation  to  the  faculty  of  taste. 

At  times,  we  hear  of  logical  criticism,  which  seems  to 
refer  to  a  study  of  the  validity  or  falsity  of  argument. 
So,  verbal  criticism  emphasizes  the  language  of  author- 
ship. It  is  textual  or  exegetical,  rather  than  subjective 
and  mental. 

In  these  and  kindred  terms,  of  whatever  diversity, 
literature  is  the  fundamental  conception,  and  the  order 
of  judgment  is  essentially  literary.  The  phrase.  Liter- 
ary Criticism,  may  thus  be  defined  to  be,  that  science 
and  art  which  has  to  do  with  the  examination  of  the 
quality  and  form  of  literary  authorship.  As  a  science, 
it  gathers  and  formulates  critical  principles,  and  as  an 
art,  it  seeks  to  apply  those  principles  to  concrete  exam- 
ples of  authorship  in  prose  and  verse.  Criticism  as  a 
literary  form  has  thus  its  own  place  and  function,  and 
as,  in  the  nature  of  the  human  mind,  it  will  express 
itself  after  one  method  or  another,  it  is  highly  important 
that  its  method  be  the  best.  When  Carlyle,  in  referring 
to  Criticism  in  Germany,  writes,  'Hhat  it  stands  like  an 
interpreter  between  the  inspired  and  the  uninspired  to 
clear  our  sense  that  it  may  discern  beauty  "  he  at  once 
lifts  the  art  of  literary  judgment  above  the  plane  of  the 
commonplace  to  a  level  of  mental  and  moral  outlook  and 
power. 

When  it  is  remembered  that  its  radical  elements  are 
literary  and  intellectual  insight,  a  profound  and  delicate 


128  LITEBATUBE 

af&nity  of  spirit  with  all  tliat  is  best  in  authorship,  and 
a  conscientions  fidelity  to  truth  and  justice  in  the  exam- 
ination of  literary  product,  it  will  be  evident  that  its 
requisitions  are  of  the  highest  order,  and  that  the  char- 
latan, novice  and  morally  indifferent  are  out  of  place  in 
the  execution  of  its  trusts.  ''The  critical  function" 
writes  Professor  Eichardson  "is  as  legitimate  as  the 
creative,  and,  in  a  true  sense,  it  is  as  high.  Some  criti- 
cism is  creative  literature  in  the  best  sense."  To  the 
same  effect,  Matthew  Arnold  contends,  as,  does  Mr. 
Stedman,  of  our  own  country.  The  fact  that  criticism 
is  found,  at  times,  in  verse,  as  in  Pope's  "Essay  on  ' 
Criticism"  and  Lowell's  " Fable  For  Critics, "  and  that  ' 
many  of  the  ablest  critics  of  England  and  America,  as  j 
Arnold  and  Poe,  have  been  poets  as  well,  detracts  in  no  | 
whit,  as  some  allege,  from  the  mental  quality  of  criticism  I 
as  an  art,  but  rather  shows  its  wide-reaching  function  in  \ 
the  sphere  of  literature  and  its  happy  combination  of  . 
genius  and  artistic  taste.  He  should  be  the  best  critic  I 
of  prose  or  verse  who  has  written  acceptably  in  each  j 
province,  while  not  a  few  of  our  representative  English  » 
authors  have  done  their  best  work  and  won  their  highest 
place  and  repute  along  the  line  of  criticism,  rather  than 
on  that  of  any  other  form  of  prose  expression. 

There  is  criticism,  as  we  know,  and  there  is  criticism. 
There  is  an  ignorant,  an  unsympathetic,  a  superficial  i 
and  partial  censorship  of  books  and  men  of  letters,  but 
there  is,  also,  a  science  and  an  art  of  literary  inlook  and 
outlook  ;  a  sane  and  sober  method  of  interpretation  as 
well  as  of  observation  ;  a  study  of  mind  and  art  as  re- 
lated ;  a  study  of  mind  in  art  and  of  art  in  mind ;  of 
esthetic  genius  as  revealed  in  the  province  of  imagina- 
tion,   sentiment  and  taste  5   an  investigation  of  causal 


LITEBATVBE  AND   CRITICISM  129 

agencies  working  behind  and  below  what  is  called  liter- 
ature on  the  printed  page.  This  is  the  criticism  of  which 
we  speak  and  brings  into  play  every  finest  faculty  of  the 
complex  nature  of  man. 

Of  this  high  order  of  personal  judgment  more  is  ur- 
gently needed  among  us,  partly,  to  minimize  the  distance 
between  the  production  and  the  examinatien  of  literature 
and,  partly,  for  its  own  sake,  to  make  sure  those  high 
results  within  the  realm  of  letters  which  the  judicial 
faculty  and  habit  are  supposed  to  guarantee. 

More  than  this,  of  all  men,  the  critic  should  be  the 
humblest,  and  the  readiest  to  sit  in  judgment  and  with 
fullest  severity  upon  his  own  creative  work  or  his  work 
as  a  critic,  as  it  is  not  until  he  has  developed  this  gener- 
ous and  lowly  temper  that  his  conclusions  are  valid  for 
himself  or  others. 

It  is  in  this  spirit  that  Lessing  and  Saint  Beuve,  Cole- 
ridge and  De  Quincey,  Lowell  and  Whipple  wrote  and 
judged  and,  for  this  reason,  if  for  no  other,  their  decisions 
have  commended  themselves  to  the  literary  world. 

Lord  Kames,  in  his  "Elements  of  Criticism,"  calls 
special  attention  to  the  object  and  varied  advantages  of 
the  critical  art,  the  prime  purpose  being,  in  his  view, 
the  expression  and  development  of  taste,  and  its  benefits, 
lying  in  the  line  of  esthetic  pleasure,  the  formation  of 
the  habit  of  literary  discrimination,  and  its  efiect  on 
character  and  conduct  in  elevating  and  purifying  the 
entire  nature  of  man. 

All  true  literary  criticism,  as  to  its  object,  it  may  be 
said,  is  constructive  and  positive  rather  than  destructive 
and  negative  ;  synthetic  more  than  analytic ;  and,  thus, 
serves  to  stimulate  and  encourage  authors  rather  than  to 
rebuke  and  repress  them.     Swift's  satire,  in  his  "Tale 


130  LITEBATTJBE 

of  a  Tubj"  on  those  critics  whose  chief  delight  is  in  the 
detection  and  exposition  of  errors  is  well  deserved,  and 
points  to  the  better  method  by  which  what  is  meritorious 
is  magnified  and  all  demerit  reduced  to  a  minimum. 
Hence,  what  are  known  as,  the  Canons  of  Criticism, 
should  be  determined  from  this  point  of  view,  such  as 
that  of  Matthew  Arnold's,  that  criticism  has  to  do  "with 
the  best  that  is  known  and  thought  in  the  world  "  ;  or 
that  of  Stedman'  s  '■ '  that  a  critic  must  accept  what  is  best 
in  a  poet  and  thus  become  his  best  encourager."  "The 
thing  to  know  of  a  writer, ' '  says  Arnold,  ' '  is,  where  he 
is  all  himself  and  his  best  self, "  if  so  be,  we  may  thus  do 
him  no  wrong  in  the  way  of  a  captious  fault-finding.  In 
a  word,  what  has  been  termed,  the  function  of  criticism, 
is  thus  seen  to  be  positive,  incitive  and  catholic,  free 
from  negations,  discouragements  and  .mental  narrowness. 
Criticism,  as  such,  should  thus  take  its  place  in  litera- 
ture as  a  commanding  art  for  the  worthiest  ends  ;  should 
invite  to  its  service  the  best  minds  of  the  time,  and  be 
an  important  factor  in  general  intellectual  life. 

This,  indeed,  it  is  now  doing.  Better  work  has  never 
beeil  done  in  this  direction  than  that  which  is  now  in 
process.  Literary  critics  are  asking  somewhat  as  the 
old  masters,  Longinus,  Cousin  and  Lessing  asked — What 
are  the  conditions  of  all  successful  criticism  ?  What  are 
its  possibilities  as  an  adjutant  to  literary  study,  and  what 
its  limitations  ?  What  are  its  best  methods,  and  how  can 
the  manifest  errors  that  have  obtained  hitherto  be  nulli- 
fied or  lessened  *? 

In  fine,  how  can  the  science  be  delivered  out  of  the 
hands  of  its  enemies  and  be  kept  under  the  control  of 
competent  guides  *?  It  is  gratifying  to  note,  that,  in  the 
solution  of  these  problems,  literary  criticism  is  receiving 


f  LITERATTJBE  AND   CRITICISM  131 

valuable  aid  from  all  other  related  provinces  of  criticism, 
philosophic  and  linguistic,  scientific  and  sociological,  so 
that  the  unity  of  truth  shall  be  preserved,  and  the  ex- 
amination of  literature  be  conducted  on  principles  and 
by  methods  common  to  all  other  leading  departments  of 
study. 

I.  We  are  now  prepared  to  enter,  somewhat  more 
specifically,  into  the  discussion  before  us,  and  inquire, 
first  of  all,  as  to  The  Primary  Purpose  of  Literary  Criti- 
cism. According  to  Arnold,  its  purpose  is  ^'  to  see  the 
object  as  in  itself  it  really  is,"  or,  as  he  elsewhere  states 
it,  ^ '  to  learn  and  propagate  the  best  that  is  known  and 
thought  in  the  world."  Brunetiere,  of  France,  insists, 
more  definitely,  that  the  purpose  of  criticism  is  three- 
fold, to  explain,  to  classify  and  to  judge.  This  explana- 
tion involves  what  we  mean  by  the  exposition  or  elucida- 
tion of  an  author,  a  book,  a  literary  movement.  The 
classification  involves  the  assignment  of  the  author  or 
book  to  its  legitimate  place  as  related  to  other  books  and 
authors.  The  judging  involves  a  final  and  an  abiding 
determination,  an  estimate  of  quality  and  spirit  and  pur- 
pose, this  last  object,  that  of  judging,  being  the  one  to 
which  the  others  are  preparative  and  subordinate.  Crit- 
icism, as  the  word  implies,  is  a  Judgment. 

Thus  Dryden,  in  one  of  his  '' Critical  Prefaces,"  says 
of  Criticism — ^Hhat  it  is  a  standard  of  judgment,  whose 
purpose  is  to  enable  us  to  observe  those  excellencies 
which  shall  delight  a  reasonable  reader. ' '  Its  purpose 
says  Hennequin,  "  is  to  show  the  relations  of  any  work 
to  the  author  of  it."  Lowell  tersely  expresses  it,  ^^The 
object  of  criticism  is  not  to  criticize  but  to  understand," 
or  as  Maurice  states  it — ^Ho  discover  what  is  true  and 


132  LITEBATUBE 

permanent."  Thus  the  varied  views  might  be  cited  at 
length,  while,  in  the  last  analysis,  they  can  all  be  safely 
reduced  to  a  few  cardinal  propositions.  As  far  as  our 
present  purpose  is  concerned,  and  in  the  light  of  literary 
history,  the  Final  Purpose  of  Literary  Criticism  may  be 
best  expressed  by  the  words — Interpretation  and  Deci- 
sion. The  critic  is  the  Interpreter  and  the  Judge,  his 
office  being  to  examine  and  disclose  the  quality  of  the 
literary  product  before  him  and,  in  the  light  of  it,  to  give 
his  decision. 

As  Lowell  intimates,  it  is  the  critic's  object  to  under- 
stand the  subject  himself  and  to  make  others  understand 
it,  and  so  to  widen  the  bounds  of  human  knowledge.     It 
is  evident,  therefore,  that  if  this  is  the  aim  of  criticism, 
the  special  qualities  that  the  critic  must  possess  are  clear- 
ness of  conception  and  the  ability  to  embody  his  concep- 
tions in  definite  and  conclusive  form.    What  Arnold  has  | 
called  ^'straight  thinking"  is  needed,  absence  of  mental  I 
crookedness,  bias  and  narrowness,  the  skill  to  see  and; 
study  and  state  the  thing  as  it  really  is.    At  no  point  are  \ 
the  intellectual  demands  of  criticism  more  clearly  seen.     [ 

11.  As  to  the  Methods  of  Criticism,  also,  there  may  be 
and  has  been  a  valid  difference  of  opinion,  the  point  of 
importance  in  such  diversity  being  as  to  which  of  these 
methods  should  at  the  time  prevail.  The  German  author, 
Urlichs,  and  others  speak  of  all  methods  as  reducible  to 
the  Higher  and  Lower,  it  being  left  to  the  judgment  of 
the  critic  as  to  just  how  this  classification  shall  be  made. 
We  shall  mention  four  distinct  methods  : 

1.  The  Historical.     Any  literary  history,  so  called,  as 
HaUam's  or  Sismondi's  is  clearly  of  this  order,  wherein 


f 

I 


LITERATURE  AND   CRITICISM  133 

the  history  being  literary  is  as  such  critical,  the  historian 
as  he  passes  on  from  point  to  point,  pausing,  as  he  deems 
best,  to  comment  on  what  is  under  review,  precisely  as 
the  civil  historian  fulfills  the  function  of  a  political  critic. 
Such  a  book  as  Masson's  "  Life  and  Times  of  Milton  "  or 
Tyler's  '^  Literary  History  of  The  American  Eevolution  " 
is  of  this  type.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  it  may  be  said 
that  Historical  Criticism  lies  on  the  border-line  between 
the  higher  and  the  lower  orders,  it  being  somewhat  easy 
for  the  critic  to  pass  from  the  work  of  criticism  proper  to 
that  of  ordinary  historical  narrative. 

2.  A  further  method  is  the  Textual,  confining  itself  to 
the  letter  of  the  book  in  hand.  It  is  the  grammatical, 
verbal  or  exegetical  method,  dealing  with  authorship 
only  and  not  with  authors. 

By  this  method,  the  literature  examined  must  be  made 
to  stand  the  test  of  correct  verbal  usage,  of  correct  struc- 
ture. It  must  conform  to  the  statutes  laid  down.  Words, 
sentences  and  figures  must  be  appropriate.  Textual  Criti- 
cism is,  in  a  sense,  syntactical,  having,  as  might  be  ex- 
pected, a  much  wider  scope  in  linguistic  subjects  than  in 
those  purely  literary,  where  the  commentator  must  deal 
with  texts  and  manuscripts  and  insist  upon  absolute  fidel- 
ity to  the  accepted  canons  of  the  schools. 

3.  Esthetic  Criticism  magnifies  the  sentiment  and  spirit 
above  the  letter,  detects  and  appreciates  the  beautiful 
wherever  found,  and  insists  that  literature  is,  first  and 
last,  artistic,  involving  grace  and  finish  and  all  that  is 
expressed  in  the  word — Form.  Especially  in  poetry  as  a 
Fine  Art  is  this  order  of  criticism  applicable,  wherein,  on 
the  principle  of  poetic  license,  the  poet  must  have  scope 


134  LITEBATUBE 

and  privilege,  and  not  be  held,  as  in  the  textual  method, 
to  the  most  minute  conditions  and  restrictions.  One 
of  the  most  natural  applications  of  this  method  is  seen 
in  the  spacious  province  of  Style.  As  an  English  critic 
expresses  it — ''Criticism  is  a  search  into  the  primary 
laws  of  good  writing."  This  is  the  dominant  feature  in 
Arnold's  work  as  a  critic,  apart  from  which  he  can  not 
be  understood.  In  his  treatise — ''The  Study  of  Celtic 
Literature ' '  he  discusses  Style  ;  insists  that  the  absence 
of  it  in  German  Literature  is  conspicuous  ;  shows  how  it 
appears  in  Dante,  Virgil  and  Milton,  and  remarks — 
"that  the  turn  for  style  is  perceptible  all  through  Eng- 
lish poetry ' '  noting,  as  its  essential  elements — Simplicity 
and  Dignity.  What  he  calls,  "the  grand  style,"  is  nota- 
ble for  its  serious  decorum,  for  what  Longinus  calls  ' '  ele-  » 
vation  of  spirit. ' '  ' 

Hence,  the  copious  literature  on  this  subject  from  Plato 
and  Aristotle  down  to  Euskin  and  Pater — what  it  is,  j 
what  its  relation  to  literature  is,  what  its  relation  is  to  '■ 
the  thought  behind  it  and  to  the  author,  and  how  it  may  ' 
best  be  cultivated.  The  esthetic  method  with  all  its ; 
merits  has  not  always  escaped  the  special  peril  that  be- , 
sets  it,  an  undue  emphasis  of  the  merely  formal  in  liter- 
ary art  and  style. 


< 


4.  Hence,  the  need  of  the  Philosophic  Method.  It  is 
the  application  of  thought  to  criticism — the  Intellectual 
Method  proper  and  especially  adapted  to  the  best  forms 
of  Prose.  Here  the  critic  inquires — What  does  the  au- 
thor say  and  mean  ?  What  is  the  value  of  his  message  ? 
Is  it  original  and  does  it  add  to  the  content  of  existing 
truth  ?  So,  in  the  study  of  an  epoch,  he  inquires — What 
is  its  literary  meaning  ?    What  principles  are  at  stake  at 


LITERATURE  ANB   CRITICISM  135 

the  time  and  how  does  it  affect  other  epochs  ?  In  short, 
the  critic  is  now  dealing  with  the  foundations  of  liter- 
ature and  with  all  those  basal  problems  that  emerge  as 
the  foundations  are  examined.  The  method  is  retrospec- 
tive and  profound,  as  seen  in  Spencer' s  '■ '  Philosophy  of 
Style"  and  Courthope's  '^Life  in  Poetry  and  Law  in 
Taste. "  It  is  this  method  that  brings  criticism  into  vital 
relation  to  all  the  highest  forms  of  mental  action  and  co- 
ordinates it  with  literature  itself  as  but  one  of  its  mani- 
fold phases. 

We  speak  of  Literature  and  Literary  Criticism,  and, 
yet,  we  are  to  remember  that  properly  interpreted,  the 
product  and  the  study  of  the  product  are  alike  literature, 
the  critic  and  the  author,  the  one  personality.  If,  as  we 
are  told,  literary  criticism  has  not  yet  reached  the 
''scientific  stage"  of  its  development,  it  maybe  safely 
asserted  that  through  the  application  of  this  Philosophic 
Method  this  "scientific  stage  "  is  practically  reached. 

III.  An  additional  inquiry  awaits  us  as  we  note — The 
Eesults  or  Benefits  that  accrue  to  Literary  Criticism 
when  properly  understood  and  applied. 

1.  The  first  of  these  is  a  fuller  Appreciation  of  Liter- 
ature, with  all  which  that  involves,  such  as  a  keen  and 
an  unerring  sense  of  the  artistic  ;  a  close  discrimination 
between  the  true  and  the  false  in  authorship  ;  the  posses- 
sion of  what  Hazlitt  calls  "a,  refined  understanding"; 
in  a  word,  literary  taste  and  tone  and  spirit,  a  sense  of 
companionship  with  the  best  literature  so  that  as  soon  as 
seen  it  is  known  to  be  the  best.  Without  this  result 
both  to  the  critic  and  the  reader,  criticism  is  a  failure, 
thwarting  us  just  where  we  look  for  success  and  need  it 
the  most.     It  is  this  appreciativeness  which  will  guide 


136  LITERATURE 

the  mind  in  that  Choice  of  Books  of  which  Mr.  Harrison 
speaks,  so  that  by  a  kind  of  cultivated  instinct  or  affinity 
what  Maurice  calls,  The  Friendship  of  Books,  will  be 
enjoyed. 

2.  A  further  Eesult  is  seen  in  the  Enlargement  and 
Enriching  of  Literature  itself  as  its  historical  develop 
ment  goes  on  in  any  age  or  nation.  This,  indeed,  is  the 
ultimate  aim  of  all  literary  comment,  to  lessen  and,  if 
possible,  eliminate  all  existing  defects  and  make  an  open 
way  for  the  realization  of  the  best  ideals.  No  just  and 
catholic  application  of  critical  canons  should  be  long] 
continued  in  any  nation's  literary  history  without  its' 
being  soon  followed  by  the  unerring  signs  of  literary  im-j 
provement  both  in  scope  and  quality.  The  critic,  atj 
this  point,  is  the  accepted  guardian  of  the  nation's  liter-! 
ary  interests  ;  draws  from  the  past  both  encouragement 
and  warning  ;  indicates  the  ways  in  which  the  good  may 
be  conserved  and  the  objectionable  avoided,  and  by  hold- 
ing up  an  ever  higher  literary  standard  serves  to  give 
steadiness  and  consistency  to  literary  progress.  This  is 
something  more  than  literary  appreciation.  It  is  liter- 
ary effort  and  expression  on  the  part  of  those  to  whom, 
for  the  present,  a  people's  literary  reputation  is  entrusted 
and  whose  duty  it  is  to  leave  the  literature  better  than 
they  found  it. 

3.  Another  natural  Eesult  of  all  true  criticism  is  seen 
in  its  relation  to  the  General  Reading  Public,  in  the  line 
of  the  Education  of  the  Public  Taste.  This  is  something 
different  from  the  subjective  Appreciation  of  the  critic 
or  the  objective  Enlargement  of  Literature.  It  is  the 
application  of  critical  canons  to  the  outside  world  of 


LITEBATUBE  AND   CBITIGI8M  137 

every-day  life  ;  to  the  street  and  counting-room ;  and 
shop  and  farm  ;  to  the  body  politic  proper,  so  as  to  make 
it,  in  so  far  as  possible,  a  literary  constituency,  exerting, 
as  such,  a  wholesome  reactionary  influence  on  the  critic 
and  the  author.  We  speak  of  the  literary  world.  This 
should  mean  more  by  far  than  the  limited  circle  of  au- 
thors and  critics  by  profession  and  the  comparatively 
limited  circle  that  frequents  the  library.  It  should  in- 
clude the  intelligent  public  at  large,  the  middle  classes 
proper,  indirectly  and,  yet,  potently  affected  by  the 
mere  prevalence  of  sound  principles  of  criticism  and  the 
diffusion  of  good  taste.  Literary  Criticism,  thus  inter- 
preted, should  go  far  to  make  good  literature  a  general 
commodity,  attractive  to  the  people  in  the  mass.  It 
should  secure  General  Culture.  From  the  discussion 
thus  presented,  various  problems  of  interest  emerge.  As 
old  as  the  Art  of  Criticism  is,  dating  back  to  Aristotle, 
it  is,  also,  as  new  as  the  latest  literary  deliverance  in  the 
pages  of  a  contemporary  magazine.  Literary  Criticism 
is  said  to  be,  at  present,  "  dynamic."  This  means  that 
it  is  more  conscious  than  ever  of  its  inherent  power  and 
feels  more  fully  than  ever  the  consciousness  of  its  grow- 
ing strength.  ^^  An  appreciative  curiosity,"  it  is  added, 
characterizes  it.  This  is  but  another  way  of  saying  that 
the  whole  history  and  character  of  literary  criticism  is 
now  recasting,  that  it  must  be  reopened  and  studied 
from  new  points  of  view,  that  much  that  was  true  in 
Aristotle' s  time  may  not  hold  good  in  the  present  cen- 
tury of  European  Letters.  Old  questions  long  ago  con- 
sidered settled  are  demanding  readjustment  and  new 
problems  are  emerging  under  new  conditions,  so  that  in 
criticism,  as  in  literature  itself,  the  impartial  student  is 
kept  busy  in  noting  and  interpreting  the  signs  of  the 


138  LITEBATUBE 

times.  As  to  what  these  Problems  specifically  are,  a 
wide  difference  of  opinion  may  prevail.  Some  of  them, 
by  way  of  example,  may  be  stated.  Precisely  what  is 
the  Province  of  Criticism — its  scope  and  its  limitations  ? 
"What  is  the  exact  relation  of  Criticism  to  Creative  liter- 
ary Production,  and  how  and  why  do  eras  of  Criticism 
and  Production  appear  and  disappear  as  they  do  ?  What 
is  the  relation  of  Literary  Criticism  to  other  critical  types 
— Scientific,  Philosophic  and  to  what  extent  is  it  justly 
linguistic  %  What  are  the  necessary  Conditions  of  Criti- 
cism and  the  necessary  Qualifications  of  the  critic  ? 

Is  a  School  of  Criticism  such  as  the  French  Academy 
under  Eichelieu  desirable  in  its  literary  effects  ?  What 
is  the  Comparative  Merit  of  the  great  critics  of  litera- 
ture? What  is  the  legitimate  relation  of  Criticism  to 
Journalism,  and  what  are  the  most  apparent  needs  at 
present  in  the  line  of  advancing  the  interests  of  the  Art? 
Such  questions  as  these  indicate  the  scope  of  the  subject 
in  hand  and  the  interest  that  attends  any  proper  discus-  \ 
Bion  of  it.  I 

A  suggestion  or  two  must  suflice. 

(a)  That  Literary  Criticism  must  ever  be  kept  in  vital , 
contact  with  Literature,  and  never  be  made  an  end  in ; 
itself.     It  must  have  the  pulse  of  life  in  it ;  must  be  an 
organic  process  and  not  the  official  method  of  an  expert. 

(&)  Further,  Literary  Criticism  must  be  kept  in  the 
hands  of  Literary  Masters  and  never  delegated  to  Nov- 
ices. No  great  author  is  too  great  to  assume  the  critic's 
function,  and  no  work  that  he  may  do  is  more  important 
than  his  critical  work.  There  are  great  critics  and  great 
critical  masterpieces  as  there  are  great  poems  and  great 
plays.  Critical  Genius  is  a  distinct  order  of  genius  in 
the  realm  of  letters. 


CHAPTEE  NINE) 

LITERATURE    AND   LIFE 

That  might  be  said  of  Literature  in  general  wliich 
Courthope  says  of  Poetry,  ' '  that  it  is  as  much  the  reflec- 
tion of  the  growth  of  the  national  mind  and  circumstance 
as  history  is  the  record  of  the  national  life.  We  ought 
to  be  acquainted  historically  with  the  general  laws  that 
seem  to  determine  the  progress  of  popular  imagination." 
To  this,  Yinet,  the  French  critic,  responds,  as  he  says — 
'^  Literature  has  man  for  its  subject  and  end.  The  aim 
of  the  poet  is  to  see  life  steadily  and  to  see  it  whole.  .  .  . 
The  author  is  to  be  impregnated  with  the  social  move- 
ment." As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  might  say,  that  Litera- 
ture has  hitherto  been  regarded  by  many  critics  and  by 
the  popular  judgment  as  a  something  separated  widely 
from  the  common  life  of  the  respective  eras  in  which  it 
has  flourished, — the  peculiar  province  of  scholars  or  men 
of  letters,  the  study  of  the  school,  the  cloister  and  the 
select  circle,  the  exclusive  pursuit  of  the  cultured  and 
the  higher  classes.  In  earlier  European  history  and, 
especially,  in  that  of  the  Middle  Ages,  not  a  little  sanc- 
tion was  given  to  this  view  by  the  necessities  of  civiliza- 
tion. Learning  itself  was  not  difiused.  Manuscripts, 
before  the  invention  of  printing,  were  rare.  There  was 
a  clannish  tendency  among  authors  as  among  tribes  and 
peoples,  and  it  was  not  until  the  Eevival  of  Learning,  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  when  the  classics  were  diffused, 
and  the  modern  nations  took  on  a  new  life,  that  litera- 
ture itself  became  less  exclusive  and  sought  to  identify 

139 


140  LITERATURE 

itself  with  all  the  external  activities  of  men.  Then 
sprang  up  what  Possnett  has  called,  a  World-Literature. 
The  ''Voices  of  the  People,"  as  Herder  states  it,  were 
now  heard.  Literature  became  what  Mr.  Arnold  has 
called  it, — a  "  criticism  of  life, "  including,  in  its  prog- 
ress, an  ethnological  element,  a  catholicity  of  type  and 
function  altogether  alien  to  it  in  the  former  time.  So 
pronounced  is  this  new  departure  that  literature  and 
civilization  must  now  be  studied  in  the  light  of  each 
other,  as  they  are  so  studied  by  such  comprehensive 
authors  as  Guizot  and  Draper  and  Buckle  and  Scherer 
and  Hallam  and  Sismondi.  The  student  of  national 
progress  is  struck  at  the  outset  by  the  vital  manner  in 
which  literary  events  and  civic  events  mutually  affect 
each  other.  This  is  especially  illustrated  by  noting  the 
way  in  which  Literature  has  been  affected  by  Eevolu- 
tions,  inasmuch  as  national  life  in  such  crises  is  ex- 
pressed in  its  most  intense  form.  Prof.  Dowden,  in  his 
able  volume  on  ' '  The  French  Eevolution  and  English 
Literature,"  applies  this  principle  to  one  European 
Nation,  when  the  Eeign  of  Terror  was  occasioned  by  and 
also  occasioned  a  type  of  literature  as  extreme  and  impas- 
sioned as  was  the  civil  struggle  itself.  The  same  could  be 
shown  in  Germany,  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  and  in  the 
later  struggles  of  the  Empire  to  secure  its  confederation. 
In  English  Letters,  from  Chaucer  down,  this  influence  is 
notable— in  the  French  and  English  Wars;  in  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses;  in  the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury; in  the  Revolutions  of  1640  and  1688,  and  in  the 
influence  of  the  American  Revolution  of  1776,  and  the 
French  Revolution  of  1789,  on  England  and  English 
authors.  Such  authors  as  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth 
and  Shelley  and  Blake  and  Byron  evinced  this  effect  oi 


LITERATURE  AND  LIFE  141 

French  life  on  Englisli  in  so  marked  a  manner  as  to 
color  the  entire  literature  of  the  opening  of  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

What  Mr.  Whipple  has  called,  Literature  and  Life, 
are  here  so  related  that  the  study  of  the  one  not  only  in- 
volves that  of  the  other,  but  the  study  of  the  one  is  the 
study  of  the  other,  and  they  are  to  be  viewed  as  two 
vohmies  of  one  and  the  same  book,  giving  an  account  of 
the  sayings  and  doings  of  man.  There  is  what  Triggs 
has  called.  The  Social  Imagination.  Hence,  we  notice, 
at  the  outset,  the  relation  of  History  to  Literature,  his- 
tory itself,  in  reality,  being  one  of  the  forms  of  literature. 
By  the  term,  history,  however,  we  mean  now  civic  life, 
as  revealing  itself  through  the  successive  centuries  or  as 
recorded  on  the  page  for  the  study  of  the  scholar. 

In  the  Preface  to  Courthope'  s  '■ '  Liberal  Movement  in 
English  Letters,"  we  read,  "My  intention  has  been  to 
trace  historically  the  manner  in  which  the  movement  in 
behalf  of  liberty  during  the  present  century  has  affected 
the  order  established  in  the  sphere  of  Imagination." 
Here  the  author  applies  national  life  in  one  of  its  phases, 
the  movement  toward  civil  liberty,  to  literature  in  one  of 
its  phases.  Poetry.  The  application,  however,  is  as  broad 
as  national  life  and  literature  in  their  widest  reach,  and 
can  be  tested  satisfactorily  at  any  point  along  the  line  of 
what  we  call,  the  historical  development  of  a  people. 
There  is  an  Historical  Method  in  Literature,  an  examina- 
tion of  literary  data,  of  facts  and  opinions  and  incidents 
and  events  with  reference  to  reaching  intelligent  and  safe 
conclusions.  There  is  a  survey  of  literary  progress  as 
there  is  a  survey  of  historical  progress,  conducted  after 
the  same  manner  and  affecting  each  other  at  points  in- 
numerable. 


142  LITEBATUBE 

This  is  true,  whatever  the  process  may  be,  chronolog- 
ical or  logical,  the  latter  being  in  literature  as  in  history 
the  higher  process,  and  the  two  processes  fusing  into  one 
in  all  the  best  forms  either  of  history  or  literature.  There 
is  then  a  History  of  Literature, — a  record  of  literary  life 
as  it  has  been  lived,  as  there  is  a  History  of  Philosophy 
and  of  Science  and  of  the  Arts  and  of  Language. 

There  is,  moreover,  what  we  may  term,  The  Historical 
Spirit  in  Literature, — the  spirit  of  research,  inquiry,  and 
an  impartial  purpose  to  reach  and  diffuse  the  truth. 
HaUam,  in  his  '^  European  Literature  in  the  Fifteenth 
and  Sixteenth  Centuries,"  has  so  written,  as  Schlegel 
has  in  his  ' ^ Philosophy  of  History,"  as  Henry  Morley 
has  done  in  his  ^^ History  of  English  Writers,"  and  as 
all  historians  have  done  who  have  aimed  to  exhibit  au- 
thorship in  vital  contact  with  the  life  of  the  time  in  which 
it  was  developing. 

Not  that  the  study  of  Literature  should  be  confined  to 
a  study  of  its  History.  There  is  a  manifest  danger  here 
to  which  too  many  students  of  literature  have  already 
yielded,  of  subordinating  the  spirit  and  purpose  of  liter- 
ature to  its  facts  and  dates,  of  studying  the  life  and  times 
of  an  author  more  than  the  author  himself;  of  being 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  record  of  opinion  as  to 
English  Prose  and  Verse,  and  being  essentially  ignorant 
of  the  prose  and  verse  itself. 

There  is  too  much  of  this  recitative,  annalistic  process 
by  which  the  heart  and  soul  of  the  literature  are  missed. 
All  this  is  necessary,  but  with  it  and  as  germane  to  it, 
there  is  to  be  that  wider  process  by  which  Literature  as 
a  life  as  well  as  a  statement  is  to  be  examined  and  the 
inner  impulses  of  literary  movement  to  be  seen  and  felt. 
The  very  phrase, — historical  progress — indicates  life  and 


LITEBATUBE  AND  LIFE  143 

change,  and  change  ever  for  the  better.  Literary  His- 
tory is  in  the  making  even  as  we  study  it,  and,  tho  there 
is  a  sense  in  which  the  historical  record  of  the  old  litera- 
tures is  a  finished  record,  this  is  in  no  sense  true  in  the 
great  historic  literatures  of  the  spoken  tongues  and  of 
modern  times,  instinct,  as  they  are,  with  life,  and  re- 
quiring on  the  part  of  him  who  examines  them  a  keen 
discrimination  to  detect  every  element  and  form  of  prog- 
ress and  to  separate  the  living  from  the  dead.  English 
Literature  has  its  permanent  and  its  variable  phases, 
and  it  is  in  the  region  of  this  latter  series  of  movements 
that  the  eye  must  be  ever  open  to  note  the  order  and 
quality  of  the  change.  A  brief  reference,  at  this  point, 
to  the  celebrated  threefold  theory  of  Taine  will  be  of 
interest  as  setting  forth  still  more  clearly  this  sociological 
element  in  literature,  in  the  relation  of  Letters  to  Life. 

1.  There  is,  first,  the  relation  of  Literature  to  Eace — the 
racial  element  in  literature,  as  Mr.  Freeman  applies  it  to 
Language.  Hence,  if  we  contrast  two  such  peoples  as 
the  Shemitic  and  the  Aryan,  such  a  relation  is  at  once 
apparent,  the  difference  between  Asiatic  literature  or 
Hebraic  literature  and  that  of  Germany  and  the  Goths 
being  as  marked  as  the  racial  difference.  The  literature 
of  the  Shemitic  races  is  the  embodiment  of  Oriental  life, 
as  that  of  the  Indo-European  races  is  of  Hellenic  and 
Teutonic  life,  while  within  the  separate  province  of  either 
of  these  great  families,  the  same  influence  is  noticeable, 
the  Latins  as  a  race  expressing  one  form  of  literary  life 
and  the  North  Europeans  as  a  race,  quite  another,  tho 
each  is  alike  Indo-Germanic. 

In  Great  Britain  itself,  Scotch  and  Irish  and  English 
Literature  are  quite  distinguishable  as  types,  expressing, 


144  LITEBATUBE 

as  they  do,  distinctive,  tribal,  and  racial  differences, 
while  American  Literature,  whatever  its  features  of  simi- 
larity, has  a  type  and  mission  of  its  own,  as  the  exponent 
of  the  American  branch  of  the  English-speaking  peoples. 

2.  So  as  to  Literature  and  Environment.  There  is 
such  a  thing  in  literature  as  the  local  factor — the  genius 
loci,  begetting  a  certain  kind  of  literary  life.  The  mere 
position  of  the  English  Channel  is  enough  to  account  for 
some  of  the  phases  that  mark  English  Literature,  as 
contrasted  with  that  of  the  continent,  where  peoples  live 
closely  together  and  infringe  upon  each  other.  What  is 
called,  the  Scotch  Literature  of  Northern  England  could 
not  well  have  flourished  in  Kent  or  even  in  the  central 
shires,  as  that  of  Wessex  and  the  Thames  could  not  have 
done  on  the  upper  side  of  the  Humber.  The  bold  Sagas 
of  Scandinavia  are  differentiated  in  space  as  well  as  in 
quality  from  the  soft  and  tender  virelays  of  Brittany  and 
the  Loire.  We  look  for  '^Beowulf"  and  the  "Cid" 
just  where  they  are  actually  found.  There  is  such  a 
thing  as  literary  and  non-literary  localities.  We  speak 
of  the  Lake  School  of  English  Poets,  in  which  usage  the 
literary  and  the  topographical  are  intimately  connected. 
The  poems  of  these  authors,  of  Wordsworth  and  Southey, 
were  Poems  of  Places,  as  Longfellow  has  used  the  term. 
Dr.  Holmes,  in  his  Life  of  Emerson,  speaks  of  ''the 
academic  races  of  New  England."  These  races  were 
favorably  situated  for  the  development  of  literary  life. 
Dickens'  novels  of  London  life  owe  much  to  London  sur- 
roundings, while  the  realistic  school  of  modern  literature 
is  largely  local  in  its  type.  All  writers  whose  works  deal 
with  natural  scenery — such  as  Chaucer  and  Burns  and 
Thoreau  and  Whittier — are,  of  course,  notable  examples 


LITEBATUBE  AND   LIFE  145 

of  this  salient  principle,  while  outside  of  merely  descrip- 
tive literature,  locality  has  often  much  to  do  with  devel- 
oping literary  type.  Iceland  is  too  cold  for  the  presence 
of  lyric  verse,  as  South  Europe  is  too  tropical  for  such 
an  epical  drama  as  Faust.  Climate,  as  a  local  element, 
has  an  important  part  to  play  in  literature  as  in  lan- 
guage, and  often  determines  whether  we  are  to  have 
verse  or  prose;  epic  or  lyric;  the  bolder  or  the  more 
subdued  side  of  authorship. 

3.  So,  as  to  Literature  and  Epoch,  as  conditioning 
Literature  and  Life.  This  is  the  time  factor — the  Zeit- 
geist of  the  German  school,  the  spirit  of  the  age,  of 
which  we  so  often  hear. 

^'Literature  depends,"  writes  Possnett,  ''on  contem- 
porary life  and  thought. ' '  In  fact,  we  speak  of  contem- 
porary philosophy  and  contemporary  literature,  philoso- 
phy and  literature  developing  contemporary  with  the 
age  and  revealing  its  spirit.  So,  Shairp,  "It  is  one  of 
the  most  characteristic  things  about  our  literature  that 
the  spirit  of  each  time  has  passed  into  our  poetry,"  to 
which  we  may  add,  into  our  prose,  also, 

"Had  Shakespeare  lived  in  the  fourteenth  century,  his 
powers  would  have  been  to  a  great  extent  stunted  in 
their  growth,"  says  Devey,  and,  we  may  add,  had  Chau- 
cer lived  in  the  sixteenth,  tho  civilization  was  two  cen- 
turies in  advance  of  Chaucer,  we  should  not  have  had 
and  could  not  have  had.  The  Canterbury  Tales.  ' '  There 
must  be  a  resemblance, ' '  says  Shelley,  ' '  between  all  the 
writers  of  any  particular  age  and  an  influence  from  which 
the  meanest  scribbler  nor  the  sublimest  genius  of  any  era 
can  escape." 

Golden  Ages  in  Literature  are  thus  rational  cause  and 


146  LITERATURE 

effect,  as  are  barren  periods.  The  dearth  of  good  Eng- 
lish literature  in  the  fifteenth  century  is  just  as  explain- 
able as  the  wealth  of  it  in  the  sixteenth  and  nineteenth, 
and  explainable  on  the  same  principle,  as  the  times  were 
unpropitious  or  propitious.  The  Sturm  and  Drang 
period  in  Germany  gave  rise  to  a  certain  form  of  literary 
life,  as  the  more  settled  eras  that  followed  produced  a 
corresponding  type.  In  the  Reformation  epoch,  we  have 
Eeformation  literature  and  vital  literature  ;  in  the  early 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  it  is  more  formal  and, 
later  on,  again,  more  impassioned. 

4.  To  these  three  relations,  one  might  add  a  fourth 
and  the  most  important — that  of  Personality, — the  author 
and  the  man,  Altho,  as  Schlegel  states  it,  ''Man  can 
give  nothing  to  his  fellow-men  but  himself,"  that,  if 
properly  developed,  is  quite  enough  to  give,  and  will 
invest  with  permanent  vitality  all  he  says  and  does. 
Possnett  calls  this  Personality  ''the  principle  of  literary 
growth."  It  is  this  principle,  which,  according  to 
Lanier,  makes  the  English  Novel,  especially  in  George 
Eliot,  what  it  is  as  a  vital  factor  in  English  Letters  and 
history ;  national  and  individual  personality,  manifest- 
ing itself,  in  one  form  or  another,  in  every  page  and  line. 
Such  are  the  great  conditions  of  literary  life  and  change 
— race  and  place  and  time  and  individuality,  each  acting 
separately  and,  when  conjointly  working,  well-nigh 
irresistible. 

Not  that  these  are  as  wide-reaching  as  Mr.  Taine  in- 
sists and  are  to  be  viewed  as  causes  rather  than  condi- 
tions, nor  that,  at  times,  literature  may  not  thrive  apart 
from  such  conditions  and  in  the  face  of  adverse  elements, 
but  that  these  are  laws  generally  operative  and  especially 


LITERATUBE  AND  LIFE  147 

noticeable  whenever  literature  takes  on  varied  and  cogent 
forms. 

In  the  light  of  these  laws,  it  is  clear  that  literature  and 
life  are  related,  and  that  the  student  of  the  one  must 
make  himself  familiar  with  the  other.  If  thought,  as 
expressed  in  books,  is  so  dependent  for  the  type  and 
effect  of  its  expression  on  nationality  and  personality,  on 
time  and  place,  then  is  the  man  of  letters  driven  out, 
perforce,  from  his  retreat  into  the  broader  area  of  men 
and  things,  where  history  is  forming  and  the  world  is 
working.  Certain  phases  of  this  development  he  may 
examine  within  closed  doors,  but  certain  other  phases 
demand  individual  inspection  where  they  are,  and  must 
be  sought  out  in  order  to  be  understood. 

If  what  Mr.  Symonds  has  called,  ^'Democratic  Art," 
as  applied  to  literature,  be  a  correct  appellation,  then 
must  the  world  be  allowed  to  enter  the  author's  study  or 
the  author  leave  his  desk  and  learn  of  the  world  the 
teaching  that  it  has  for  him. 

Such  authors  as  Thiers  and  Grote  and  Spencer  and 
Clarendon  and  Mill  and  Temple  and  Wayland  and 
Walker  have  so  written,  on  the  side  of  Sociology,  while, 
more  specifically,  such  writers  as  Burke  and  Disraeli 
and  McCarthy  and  Gladstone  have  written  English  liter- 
ature as  vitally  connected  with  English  life — civil,  social 
and  individual.  Such  a  treatise  as  Bryce's  '^  American 
Commonwealth "  is  a  significant  example  of  civil  and 
political  truth  presented  on  its  literary  side — of  the  true 
relation  of  literature  and  life. 

Such  a  man  as  John  Morley,  opening  a  discussion  in 
Parliament  on  Home  Eule,  on  one  day,  and,  on  the  next, 
superintending  the  ''English  Men  of  Letters  Series"  or 
writing  his  "  Life  of  Voltaire,"  is  an  equally  notable  in- 


148  LITERATURE 

stance  of  the  normal  relation  of  the  author  and  the  man; 
of  literature  and  life. 

To  the  degree  in  which  such  authors  as  Bancroft  and  > 
Motley  and  Hawthorne  and  Lowell  have  acted,  also,  as  ', 
civil  representatives  in  foreign  countries,  is  there  evident  I 
this  close  connection  of  the  esthetic  and  the  political.         i 

As  to  the  importance  of  such  a  combination,  no  serious  { 
question  can  be  entertained.     One  invaluable  result  is  I 
that  it  makes  literature  timely — gives  it  an  interest  that 
renders  it  attractive  and  readable.     In  proportion  as  lit- 
erature and  life  are  related,  prose  and  verse  are  vital 
and,  therefore,  popular  and  pleasing. 

Far  back  in  the  fourteenth  century,  ' '  Piers  the  Plow- 
man, ' '  as  written  by  Langlande,  was  a  poem  hailed  with 
delight  by  the  people  because  it  was  a  true  transcript  of 
the  religious  and  political  life  of  the  time.  It  was  read 
and  relished,  not  merely  because  it  was  a  satire,  but  be- 
cause it  was  suffused  with  energy  and  life.  The  same 
principle  explains  the  wide  currency  of  the  '^  Canterbury 
Tales"  of  Chaucer,  in  that  the  description  of  the  pil- 
grims on  the  way  to  Kent  is  as  real  as  if  one  could  see 
them,  to-day,  starting  out  from  the  Tarbard  to  visit  the 
tomb  of  Becket.  So  Shakespeare  and  Milton,  while 
writing  for  all  time  and  all  peoples,  were  true  exponents 
of  the  life  of  their  respective  eras.  So  Addison  and 
Steele  wrote  the  '  ^  Spectator, ' '  and  Burke,  his  fiery  prose 
for  the  political  exigencies  of  the  hour.  The  great  Brit- 
ish and  American  Essayists  are  notable  examples  of  this 
vital  and  vitalizing  style  which  made  the  pages  they 
penned  j)alatable  and  instructive. 

So,  on  the  other  hand,  the  literature  of  the  fifteenth 
century  was  inane  and  inert  and,  therefore,  unreal  and 
useless,  while,  in  all  the  periods  of  English  Literature 


LITERATURE  AMD  LIFE  149 

where  authors  wrote  merely  for  the  sake  of  writing,  or 
with  reference  to  finish  and  adornment  rather  than  prac- 
tical effect,  their  writings  are  deservedly  long  since  obso- 
lete to  make  place  for  those  that  deal  with  living  issues. 

''The  greatness  of  a  poet  lies,"  says  Arnold,  '4n  his 
powerful  and  beautiful  application  of  ideas  to  life,"  and 
he  rates  Wordsworth  among  the  supreme  poets  of  the 
century  because  he  so  succeeded  in  doing  this. 

Hence,  the  permanence  of  literature  as  well  as  its 
pleasure  depends  on  this  energizing  principle.  There  are 
dead  literatures  as  well  as  dead  languages.  There  are 
obsolete  and  obsolescent  poems  and  prose  works  as  there 
are  such  words,  and  the  explanation  in  each  case  is  the 
same,  viz.,  that  they  are  no  longer  needed,  and  not 
needed,  simply  because  thought  is  active  and  authors 
are  demanded  who  write  under  the  stimulus  of  intellec- 
tual life  and  with  reference  to  the  mental  needs  of  men. 

If  we  inquire  as  to  the  special  Forms  of  Literature  that 
illustrate  this  presence  of  vitality,  we  shall  find  them  to 
be  clearly  distinguishable. 

1.  One  of  these,  strange  to  say,  is  Fiction,  the  precise 
purpose  of  which  is  the  exhibition  of  human  life  and 
thought  from  various  points  of  view. 

We  speak  of  certain  divisions  of  Fiction,  as  the  Histor- 
ical, Descriptive  and  Sentimental  Novel,  but  they  all 
agree  in  this — that  they  are  designed  to  set  forth  life.  A 
certain  type  of  fiction  is  said  to  be  realistic.  All  fiction 
is,  at  bottom,  realistic,  in  that  it  purposes,  in  terms  of 
imagination,  to  treat  of  the  life  of  man.  The  mere  fact 
that  these  truths  are  set  forth  in  symbolic  form  does  not 
prevent  them  from  being  vital  and  dealing  with  vital 
topics. 


150  LITEBATUBE 

Hawthorne  wrote  a  type  of  fiction  especially  figurative 
and  imaginative,  and,  yet,  the  '^ Scarlet  Letter"  is  so 
full  of  reality  and  lifelikeness  that  its  pages  fairly  palpitate 
with  life,  and  we  seem  to  see  the  characters  it  portrays 
moving  in  person  before  us. 

Even  that  form  of  fiction  known  as  philosophic  or 
ethical  is  thus  real  and  vital,  as  in  George  Eliot's  '^  Daniel 
Deronda,"  in  that  the  weightiest  moral  problems  are 
stated  and  discussed  therein.  It  were  desirable  that 
some  other  name  than  Fiction  might  be  given  to  this 
species  of  literature,  which  is  and  ever  will  be  a  popular 
form  of  literature  because  of  its  representation  of  life. 
Philosophically  speaking,  it  might  be  called  presenta- 
tive  or  representative  literature — its  object  being  to  set 
forth  fact  and  truth  and  incident  and  life  in  symbolism, 
and,  yet,  as  really  as  if  embodied  in  history  and  didactic 
prose. 

2.  So,  in  the  sphere  of  verse,  if  one  form  is  selected, 
it  must  be  the  dramatic,  as  that  in  which  Literature  and 
Life  are  most  closely  joined.  The  very  name,  drama, 
implies  action.  All  dramatic  authors  and  critics  have 
proceeded  on  this  idea  as  fundamental.  As  Schlegel 
expresses  it,  its  central  principle  or  quality  is,  earnest- 
ness, which,  as  he  uses  it,  is  but  another  name  for  vital- 
ity. Its  object  is,  to  '^ hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature"; 
"to  body  forth  the  forms  of  things  unknown " ;  by  way 
of  impersonation  and  characterization,  to  reveal  man  to 
himself  and  the  age  to  itself.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
say  whether  this  is  done  most  effectually  in  comedy 
or  tragedy  or  in  some  of  the  great  historical  plays 
of  literature.  In  each  and  all,  it  is  life  that  is  de- 
picted, whether  in  the  passionate  language  of  Macbeth, 


LITERATURE  AND  LIFE  151 

in  the  sparkling  pleasantry  of  Falstaff,  or  in  tlie  Mghly 
wrought  utterances  of  '  ^  Julius  Caesar  ' '  and  ' '  Eichard 
III."  No  better  test  of  dramatic  literature  is  found  than 
is  found  here — in  the  presence  or  absence  of  life — its 
absence  obliging  the  critic  to  assign  it  to  some  other 
sphere  of  literary  art. 

Hence  it  is,  that  a  national  drama,  from  its  earliest  to 
its  latest  forms,  is  a  reliable  picture  of  the  progressive 
history  of  a  nation,  and,  most  especially,  at  its  critical 
epochs.  The  Elizabethan  Drama  is  a  representation  of 
English  life  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  whatever  may  be 
its  general  characteristics  and  teachings.  So,  as  to  the 
French  drama  of  the  classical  period. 

3.  In  Lyric  verse,  also,  we  have  life  at  the  center  of 
literature,  dealing,  as  it  does,  with  the  innermost  joys 
and  sorrows  of  the  soul.  More  subjective  and  personal 
than  the  drama,  it  seeks  to  embody  human  experience 
in  song.  Nothing  in  literature  is  more  lifelike  than  the 
best  examples  of  its  Odes  and  Sonnets,  such  as  we  have 
in  the  heroic  stanzas  of  Milton  and  Wordsworth;  in  the 
pastorals  of  Spenser  and  Thomson;  in  the  stirring  lines 
of  Burns,  and  the  Elegies  of  Gray  and  Tennyson. 

Genuine  sentiment  is  always  vital — from  the  soul  to 
the  soul,  and  critics  are  fast  inclining  to  the  belief  that 
lyric  verse  as  the  conspicuous  exponent  of  human  life  is 
second  to  no  other  in  its  range  and  richness. 

In  noting  the  relation  of  Literature  to  Life  and  the  de- 
sirability of  such  relation,  there  is  one  danger  to  which 
literature  is  liable  and  against  which  authors  are  to  be 
guarded,  the  unduly  practical  or  mercantile  theory  of 
letters.  If,  as  is  held,  literature  should  represent  life, 
why  not  make  it,  afte*'  all,  one  of  the  useful  arts — simply 


152  LITEBATUBJS 

one  of  the  human  industries,  to  be  classed  among  the 
bread  and  butter  sciences.  Hence,  we  read  of  Socialistic 
Literature — where  the  extremest  good  of  the  body  politic 
is  the  main  end.  Hence,  the  discussion  by  Dowden,  of 
what  he  terms,  in  almost  contradictory  phrase,  ^^Demo- 
cratic Art,"  a  literature  for  the  masses  rather  than  the 
classes,  of  which  Thoreau,  at  his  Brook  Farm,  or  "Whit- 
man, among  the  American  Soldiery,  would  be  the  best 
exponents. 

The  leading  expounders  of  this  theory  scarcely  know 
what  they  mean  by  it,  but  this  much  they  mean,  that 
literature,  as  hitherto  interpreted,  as  a  fine  art,  in  the 
hands  of  the  cultivated  for  purposes  of  taste  and  esthetic 
ends,  must  give  way  for  an  out-of-door  authorship,  where 
men  stand  face  to  face  with  the  world,  and  acquainting 
themselves  with  the  needs  of  the  race  know  how  best  to 
meet  them.  All  this  is  in  place  within  due  limitations, 
but,  when  pushed  to  extreme,  deprives  literature  of  its 
central  quality  and  reduces  it  to  the  plane  of  a  handi- 
craft. There  is  in  all  literature  what  Cardinal  ]S"ewman 
calls,  '  ^  a  note  of  dignity, ' '  what  Mr.  Arnold  styles,  the 
'^ sense  of  beauty,"  and  especially  visible  in  the  sphere 
of  verse. 

There  is  a  meditative  cast  about  it  that  unfits  it  for  the 
wranglings  of  the  market-place  and  hustings,  and  bids  it 
seek  a  quieter  sphere  and  contemplate  different  ends. 
Socrates,  out  in  the  streets  asking  and  answering  the 
pressing  questions  of  common  life,  was  a  philosopher  and 
man  of  affairs  more  than  an  author.     Emerson,  in  the 
undisturbed  contemplation  of  his  Concord  life,  penning } 
his  suggestive  essays,  or  Tennyson,  in  his  retiracy  at  the  I 
Isle  of  Wight,  penning  his  equally  suggestive  poems,  are  [ 
better  representatives  of  that  literary  spirit  which,  while  '• 


LITERATURE  AND  LIFE  153 

vital  and  vitalizing,  instinctively  shuns  the  ^'madding 
crowd. ' ' 

The  application  of  this  subject  and  this  caution  to  the 
young  but  rapidly  developing  literature  of  America  is  a 
matter  of  serious  interest.  Have  we  a  literature  at  all, 
is  the  question  that  was  started  at  the  opening  of  the 
century  by  Sidney  Smith  and  the  Edinburgh  Review,  and 
a  question  strangely  still  under  discussion  by  not  a  few 
English  and  Continental  critics  who  are  supposed  to 
know  what  is  and  what  is  not  literature.  The  Amer- 
icans, we  are  told,  are  too  matter-of-fact,  too  practical, 
to  have  either  the  time  or  taste  for  the  elegant  arts.  Lit- 
erature and  Life  must  be  united,  'tis  true,  but,  here,  we 
have  a  surplus  of  life  and  a  corresponding  decrease  of  the 
true  spirit  of  letters.  Commercialism  is  the  word,  they 
say.  Men  must  pass  by  the  Exchange  to  reach  the  library, 
and  authors  and  publishers  must  be  viewed  as  men  of 
trade  and  business  as  much  as  if  they  were  handling  pig 
iron  or  cotton  goods.  Hence,  the  old  sarcastic  query — 
Who  reads  an  American  book — that  is,  who  reads  it  for 
purposes  of  literary  taste  and  training  ? 

Moreover,  it  is  urged,  that  as  this  American  tendency 
in  civilization  is  increasing  rather  than  diminishing,  the 
outlook,  as  Mr.  Stedman  terms  it,  is  all  the  more  fore- 
boding, and  we  must  look,  then,  as  now,  to  the  Mother 
Country  for  men  of  letters  and  literary  books.  There  is 
some  point  in  this  and,  yet,  more  British  prejudice  than 
point,  while  England  herself  is  in  danger  of  the  same  on- 
rushing  tide  of  commercialism  which  threatens  to  drown 
out  the  inner  spirit  of  letters,  and  must  with  equal  vigor 
resist  it. 

To  all  such  superficial  questions  and  objections,  whether 
relating  to  British  or  American  Letters,  there  is  one  suf- 


154  LITERATURE 

ficient  answer  :  that,  rightly  viewed,  there  is  and  can  be 
no  valid  conflict  between  literature  and  life,  between  lit- 
erature as  a  mental  and  an  artistic  product,  and  litera- 
ture as  a  vital  product  for  practical  ends.  It  is  only 
among  inferior  authors,  working  on  erroneous  principles 
and  methods,  that  any  such  conflict  is  visible.  Herein 
lies,  indeed,  one  of  the  essential  tests  of  genius  in  author- 
ship, of  literary  sanity  and  symmetry,  to  strike  the  ^ '  note 
of  dignity  "  as  a  writer,  and,  yet,  to  make  it  so  natural 
and  sensible  a  note  that  the  open  ear  of  the  intelligent 
public  will  quickly  hear  it  and  quickly  respond  thereto. 
Genuine  literature,  dealing  in  a  real  way  with  real 
things,  will  always  be  in  good  form,  and  commend  itself 
at  the  same  time  to  sensible  men.  With  all  the  masters 
in  prose  and  verse,  literature  is,  first  and  last,  a  reality, 
and  because  a  reality,  admits  of  no  disparity  between 
things  that  should  not  differ.  Eeaders  of  The  Atlantic 
Monthly  have  been  refreshed  by  some  pertinent  sugges 
tions,  under  the  caption,  ''On  Being  Human."  Au 
thors,  above  all  men,  should  be  intensely  human  ;  men 
first,  and  then  authors ;  natural,  if  naught  else  ;  speak- 
ing out,  in  frankest  maimer,  the  thought  that  is  in  them. 
If  we  have  reality  in  literature,  we  shall  have  as  a  result 
the  ''note  of  dignity"  becoming  the  author  in  "the 
quiet  and  still  air  of  delightful  studies"  and,  also,  the 
note  of  practical  purpose  becoming  the  author  as  a  man 
of  the  world. 

Thus  it  is  that  Macaulay  and  De  Quincey,  Matthew 
Arnold  and  Walter  Pater,  Bryant  and  Hawthorne,  Emer- 
son and  Irving,  wrote  on  the  most  practical  topics  in  a 
literary  way  and  on  the  most  literary  topics  in  a  practical 
way,  and  so  wrote,  we  may  add,  mainly  because  they  wrote 
normally  and  naturally  and  with  vital  aims  in  view. 


LITER ATTJBE  AND  LIFE 


155 


The  first  question  with  regard  to  an  author's  style,  says 
Mr.  Whipple,  is,  'as  it  vitaH  Has  it  life?"  This  is  the 
first  question  we  submit  with  regard  to  literature  itself. 
Is  it  vital  ?     Has  it  life  ?     Is  it  real  ?    Has  it  reality  ? 

This  is  the  Realism  in  Letters  for  which  the  modern 
reading  world  is  waiting,  and  herein  our  authors  will  be 
seen  to  keep  in  closest  touch  with  the  life  that  is  about 
Ihem  and,  also,  in  closest  touch  with  the  highest  require- 
ments of  literary  art. 


CHAPTER    TEN 
LITERATURE  AND    ETHICS 

In  this  caption  the  word  '■ '  ethics ' '  is  not  used  in  any 
technical  sense,  referring  to  what  is  known  or  studied  as 
the  formal  subject  of  moral  philosophy,  but  rather  in  the 
more  current  and  the  wider  sense  of  morality,  as  desig- 
nating that  which  is  true  and  pure  and  in  accordance 
with  the  established  principles  of  right  and  goodness. 
Perhaps  the   adjectives,   the  literary  and   the  ethical, 
would  more  nearly  convey  our  meaning.     Judging  from 
the  attention  which  this  topic  has  received  from  the  veryj 
beginnings  of  modern  literature,  and  the  increasing  at- i 
tention  given  it  in  the  last  two  decades  of  European} 
and  English  history,  it  is  well  worth  the  while  of  every ' 
student  of  letters  and  of  morals  to  acquaint  himself  with  [ 
the  history  of  opinion  thereupon,  and  to  examine  for< 
himself  the  grounds  of  such  opinion  so  as  to  be  able  to 
give  a  good  reason  for  his  personal  views  respecting  it. 
So  extreme  are  the  positions  taken  by  different  critics 
that  it  would  seem  well-nigh  impossible  to  secure  any 
common  ground    on  which  conflicting   interests   might 
meet. 

Such  an  author  as  Selkirk,  in  his  admirable  discussion 
of,  The  Ethics  and  Esthetics  of  Modern  Poetry,  speaks  of 
the  '  '■  correlation  of  the  religious  and  the  poetical  in- 
stincts "  ;  as  if,  indeed,  the  one  were  the  necessary  com- 
plement of  the  other.  '^I  only  demand  of  the  poet," 
writes  Vinet,  ''that  he  be  true  and  do  not  interest  him- 

156 


LITERATVBE  AND  ETHICS  157 

self  in  vice, ' '  the  supposition  being  that  it  would  require 
an  actual  effort  of  the  will  for  an  author  to  be  other  than 
moral  in  his  writings,  and  he  adds,  ''When  thought  is 
nothing  more  than  the  slave  of  matter  there  is  nothing 
literary."  So  that  concise  statement  of  Bacon's,  that 
"  poetry  has  a  participation  of  divineness,"  brings  into 
exercise  what  Wordsworth,  with  the  same  idea  in  view, 
has  called  "the  vision  and  the  faculty  divine."  Nor  is 
such  opinion  confined  to  the  sphere  of  poetry ;  it  finds 
its  expression  applicable  as  well  to  prose,  where  the  au- 
thor, according  to  Mr.  Arnold,  must  deal  with  ' '  the  best 
that  is  known  and  thought, ' '  and  must  be  possessed  of 
that  "sense  of  conduct"  which,  in  its  place,  is  fully 
as  important  in  letters  as  the  ' '  sense  of  beauty. ' '  Even 
so  free  an  author  as  Chateaubriand  asserts  that  '  '■  unbe- 
lief is  the  chief  cause  of  the  decline  of  taste  and  genius," 
arguing,  j^er  contra,  that  in  an  age  of  positive  and  sound 
convictions  literature  might  be  expected  to  flourish.  It 
needs  but  a  casual  glance  at  the  pages  of  literary  history 
in  Europe  to  find  the  confirmation  of  this  statement.  It 
was  so  especially  in  Roman  letters  when  the  empire  was 
socially  and  civilly  corrupt ;  so  in  Arabia  and  the  East 
under  the  blighting  influence  of  Mohammedanism  ;  so  in 
France  in  the  days  of  the  Encyclopedists  and  freethink- 
ers ;  and  so  in  England  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century  under  the  degrading  influence  of  the  second 
Charles.  When  the  church  has  been  untrue  to  her  trusts, 
and  a  false  theology  has  begotten  a  false  theory  of  life 
and  conduct,  contemporary  and  subsequent  literature 
has  always  revealed  the  presence  of  the  decline.  So  has 
a  false  philosophy  begotten  a  correspondent  type  of  au- 
thorship, while  in  its  morality  and  immorality  the  his- 
tory of  European  art  can  be  said  to  mark  the  history  of 


158  LITEBATUBE 

European  letters.  Archbishop  Trench  raises  at  this 
point  the  practical  question  whether  what  is  known  as, 
The  Renaissance,  referring  to  the  revival  of  art  at  the 
time  of  Francis  the  First,  can  injustice  be  called  a  re- 
naissance, or  new  life,  in  that  the  art  which  was  revived 
was  pagan,  and  not  Christian,  and  thus  calculated  to 
lower  rather  than  elevate  the  tone  of  life  and  letters.  If 
it  be  asked,  What  is  meant  precisely  by  the  ethical  in 
literature  as  a  principle  or  method  ?  it  may  be  answered, 
The  indissoluble  union  of  literature  with  truth  and  faith, 
with  the  highest  and  best  interests  and  instincts  of  man, 
correlating  it  with  all  those  departments  of  thought  and 
forms  of  personal  human  activity  which  have  to  do  with 
the  raising  of  men  to  a  higher  level  of  life  and  outlook. 
It  is  a  study  in  literature,  and  by  it,  of  character  and 
motive  ;  of  those  great  influences,  individual  and  general, 
which  tend  to  regenerate  and  uplift.  When  Possnett 
speaks  of  literature  as  '^a  spiritual  reality"  he  states 
this  truth  in  most  emphatic  form.  A  phrase  used  by 
some  critics  of  prose  fiction,  ' '  the  novel  of  purpose, ' '  has 
special  reference  to  the  same  generic  idea.  Most  of  the 
references  in  literary  criticism  to  the  inner  spirit  of  lit- 
erature and  to  its  controlling  tone  and  tendencies  magnify 
this  principle.  When  a  modern  writer  in  referring  to 
Arthur  Hugh  Clough  speaks  of  his  ''conscientious  skep- 
ticism "  he  is  discovering  the  ethical  side  of  his  verse,  as 
he  must  do  who  speaks  of  that  "honest  doubt "  to  which 
the  late  English  laureate  refers  in  the  pages  of  his 
"Elegy."  When  we  are  told  that  authors  as  a  class 
"aim  at  a  purely  artistic  effect"  the  lesson  to  be  learned 
is  that  this  is  not  enough  to  constitute  true  authorship, 
an  essential  element — the  ethical — being  omitted. 

One  of  the  best  evidences  of  the  normal  relationship  of 


LITEBATUBE  AND   ETHICS  159 

the  literary  and  the  ethical  is  found  in  the  fact  that  lit- 
erature has  always  given  it  a  commanding  place  despite 
all  desire  that  might  have  existed  to  evade  it.  In  the 
department  of  history,  such  authors  as  Clarendon  and 
Hallam,  Mahon  and  Lingard,  Palgrave,  Knight,  Stanley 
and  Turner  have  recognized  it,  while  even  on  the  side  of 
skeptical  authorship  the  ethical  has  played  a  most  im- 
portant part  in  the  pages  of  Hume  and  Gibbon,  Buckle 
and  Taine,  John  Morley  and  John  Stuart  Mill.  Biog- 
raphy, as  the  history  of  personal  character  and  action, 
must,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  be  of  this  cast.  The 
large  circle  of  philosophic  or  didactic  authors  have  nec- 
essarily dealt  with  this  element,  as  Paley  and  Bentley 
and  Boyle  and  Warburton  and  Locke  and  Cudworth, 
Hobbes  and  Butler,  Maurice,  Coleridge  and  Emerson, 
while  most  of  the  miscellaneous  prose  of  England  has 
evinced  it,  as  in  the  pages  of  the  great  British  and  Amer- 
ican essayists — Landor,  Forster,  Arnold,  Newman,  Ad- 
dison and  Burke  and  Lowell.  In  poetry,  as  the  expres- 
sion of  human  life  and  feeling,  we  naturally  seek  it, 
whether  in  the  profound  study  of  character,  as  in  the 
Shakespearean  drama  ;  in  the  stately  and  serious  course 
of  the  Miltonic  epics  ;  in  the  reflective  verse  of  "Words- 
worth ;  or  in  such  a  philosophic  elegy  as  ''In  Memo- 
riam. ' '  When  Milton  speaks  of  poetry  as  ' '  passionate ' ' 
it  is  but  saying  that  it  treats  of  human  character.  It  is 
certainly  a  striking  fact  that  in  the  development  of  mod- 
ern prose  fiction,  where  we  would,  perhaps,  least  expect 
to  find  the  province  of  moral  teaching,  this  tendency  is 
more  and  more  conspicuous. 

If,  as  Lanier  insists,  the  prime  object  of  the  English 
novel  is  to  detect  and  reveal  human  personality,  what  is 
this  but  saying  that  the  prime  object  is  a  moral  one? 


160  LITEBATTJBE 

Hence  it  is  that  such  a  novelist  as  George  Eliot,  whom 
he  selects  as  the  representative  of  this  theory,  is  scarcely 
more  or  less  than  a  moralist  in  fiction.  Such  examples  as 
"Daniel  Deronda,"  "Adam  Bede,"  "Middlemarch," 
and  "Eomola"  we  call  philosophical;  and  so  they  are,  but 
especially  on  the  side  of  conduct  and  character.  The  very 
word  '■ '  characterization, ' '  applied  either  to  the  drama  or 
the  novel,  is  significant,  as  expressive  of  the  dominance 
of  character  in  these  types  of  literature,  the  dominance 
of  soul  and  purpose  and  motive.  A  great  play,  such  as 
"Othello,"  or  a  great  novel,  such  as  "The  Scarlet  Let- 
ter, ' '  might  fittingly  be  called  a  study  of  conscience,  a 
study  in  ethical  philosophy,  only  that  the  imagination  is 
more  distinctly  prominent  than  in  other  forms  of  litera- 
ture. Eussian  fiction  in  the  person  of  Tolstoi  represents 
the  same  tendency.  So  pronounced  is  this  drift  that 
much  abstruse  theological  discussion  is  now  contained  in 
the  pages  of  what  is  called  fiction,  as  in  Mrs.  Ward's 
' '  Eobert  Elsmere ' '  and  her  later  works,  ' ^  David  Grieve" 
and  " Helbeck of  Bannisdale " ;  in  Mrs.  Deland's  "John 
Ward,  Preacher,"  and  in  Celia  Parker  Wooley's 
"Eachel  Armstrong"  (Love  and  Theology).  Charles 
Eeade,  in  his  "Never  Too  Late  to  Mend,"  is  a  moral 
teacher,  as  is  Charles  Kingsley  in  all  his  attempts  to  lead 
the  way  in  social  reform. 

In  Mr.  Stedman's  latest  discussion  of  poetry,  under 
the  title  '  '■  The  Nature  and  Elements  of  Poetry, ' '  four  out 
of  the  eight  chapters  are  on  the  distinctly  ethical  side  of 
verse,  namely,  "Poetry  and  Truth,"  "Poetry  and 
Faith,"  "Melancholia,"  and  "The  Faculty  Divine," 
while  even  in  the  other  four  it  enters  as  an  important  fac- 
tor. An  explanation  of  this  is  not  far  to  find,  since  the 
ultimate  object  of  the  author  is  the  ultimate  object  of  the 


LITEBATUBE  AND  ETHICS  161 

philosoplier  and  moralist — the  obtaining  of  the  truth,  the 
realization  of  ideals  and,  more  profoundly  still,  the  solu- 
tion of  the  great  problems  of  human  character  and 
destiny.  Nowhere  else  as  at  this  point  do  the  highest 
literature  and  the  highest  ethics  meet,  so  that  when  the 
author  sits  down  to  pen  a  poem  or  an  essay,  he  has  in 
hand — only  by  another  method — the  purpose  of  the  moral 
scientist  in  studying  the  fundamental  truths  of  God  and 
man  and  the  visible  world.  One  of  the  most  character- 
istic expressions  of  this  common  purpose  is  seen  in  the 
attraction  that  literary  work  has  always  possessed  for 
the  clergy,  in  the  union  of  the  Divinities  and  the 
Humanities;  the  seeking  and  finding  and  teaching  of 
truth  being  prominent  in  each,  the  sacred  and  the  secular. 
Stopford  Brooke  has  called  the  attention  of  scholars  to 
"The  Theology  of  the  English  Poets"  as  it  is  seen  in 
Pope,  Cowper,  Burns,  and  Wordsworth.  Such  a  theo- 
logical tendency  on  the  part  of  authors  has  been  fully 
reciprocated  in  the  literary  tendency  on  the  part  of 
the  clergy  and  theologians.  Meeting  one  another  in  the 
spirit  of  brotherhood,  theology  and  literature  have  alike 
been  the  gainers  and  done  a  more  beneficent  work. 

In  treating  of  this  relation  of  literature  to  ethics  a 
caution  is  in  place,  lest  at  any  time  the  literary  become 
too  subordinate  and  the  author  take  the  place  of  the 
mere  moralist.  ^  ^  A  certain  kind  of  preachment, ' '  writes 
Stedman,  ''antipathetic  to  the  spirit  of  poesy  has  re- 
ceived the  name  of  didacticism.  Instinct  tells  us  that  it 
is  a  heresy  in  any  form  of  art.  An  obtrusive  moral  in 
poetic  form  is  a  fraud  on  its  face  and  outlawed  of  art. 
Pedagogic  formulae  of  truth  do  not  convey  its  essence." 
What  the  American  critic  here  applies  to  poetry  is 
applicable  to  literature  in  general,  and  it  is  safe  to  say 


162  LITEEATTJBE 

that  just  as  all  art  is  to  be  concealed  art,  so  as  to  have 
the  freshness  and  force  of  nature,  so  all  didacticism  or 
ethical  teaching  in  literature  is  to  be  so  concealed  as  to 
have  the  reader  feel  that  the  author  is  not  so  intent  upon 
pointing  a  moral  as  upon  expressing  his  thought  and 
feeling  and  taste.  Often  the  best  way  of  doing  good  is 
by  seeming  not  to  be  too  intent  upon  doing  it,  and  more 
is  accomplished  by  indirectness  than  by  directness.  The 
history  of  literature  affords  suggestive  examples  of  this 
undue  consciousness  of  the  ethical  intent  on  the  part  of 
authors.  In  southern  Europe,  and  in  France  more  par- 
ticularly, it  took  the  form  of  Pietism,  or  Mysticism, 
carried  to  such  an  extreme  as  to  repel  those  minds 
honestly  intent  upon  seeking  the  truth,  and  to  offend 
the  taste  of  those  who,  when  they  came  to  literature  for 
literary  purposes,  were  more  than  displeased  to  find 
themselves  inside  a  conventicle  where  they  were  obliged 
to  sit  in  silence  and  listen  to  the  homily.  In  the  British 
Isles,  especially  at  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, it  expressed  itself  at  times  extremely  in  the  form 
of  Puritanism,  when  Baxter  and  Bunyan  and  George 
Herbert  and  Jeremy  Taylor  and  Fuller  and  Sir  Thomas 
Browne  set  the  form  of  authorship  in  the  line  of  the 
homiletic  and  didactic.  Even  John  Milton  wrote  his 
prose  pamphlets  mainly  in  this  ultra  ethical  spirit.  One 
of  the  special  reasons  why  Izaak  Walton's  '^Complete 
Angler ' '  holds  such  a  high  place  in  literary  miscellany  is 
that  it  was  absolutely  free  from  professional  ethics,  ex- 
pressing in  a  genial,  natural  and  readable  manner  what 
he  had  to  say  on  the  art  of  angling.  The  correct  and  over- 
carefal  school  of  the  time  of  Queen  Anne  has  not  escaped 
censure  in  this  particular,  as  carrying  poetry  to  the  ex- 
treme of  professionalism  and  making  prose  too  prosaic  and 


LITEBATUBE  AND  ETEIC8  163 

proper.  Students  of  Eiiglisli  criticism  are  familiar  with 
the  stinging  comments  made  by  Taine  upon  the  moraliz- 
ing in  which  Addison  indulges  in  the  pages  of  The 
Spectator.  It  is  clear  that  the  English  essayist  lost  his 
influence  with  his  French  critic  by  trying  too  laboriously 
to  reach  his  conscience  and  correct  his  morals.  Here, 
again,  Daniel  Defoe,  in  his  ^'Eobinson  Crusoe,"  relieved 
this  moralistic  monotony  very  much  as  Izaac  "Walton  re- 
lieved it  in  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth.  Later  on, 
in  the  Georgian  era,  we  have  what  has  been  called  the 
prolonged  and  pious  descriptions  of  Thomson's  "Sea- 
sons, ' '  the  somewhat  forced  and  overdrawn  teachings  of 
Eichardson's  "Pamela"  and  "Clarissa  Harlowe," 
Thomson's  "  Castle  of  Indolence, "  Johnson's  "Vanity  of 
Human  Wishes,"  and  the  prosaic  morality  of  Edward 
Young' s  ' '  E'ight  Thoughts. ' '  When  Voltaire  was  asked 
what  estimate  he  placed  upon  these  he  sharply  answered, 
in  the  line  of  what  we  are  emphasizing,  "Very  good  for 
night  thoughts."  The  extreme  literary  libertinism  of 
such  authors  as  Savage  and  Smollett  and  Sterne  and  Bol- 
ingbroke  is  partially  a  reaction  from  the  stilted  and  con- 
ventional ethics  of  the  time,  and  readers  preferred,  if 
they  must  choose,  " Eoderick  Eandom "  and  "Tristram 
Shandy ' '  to  Shenstone'  s  ^ '  Schoolmistress ' '  or  Akenside'  s 
prosaic  poem  on  the  Imagination.  Equally  severe  have 
been  the  strictures  at  this  point  upon  the  poetry  of  Words- 
worth, who  is  represented  by  his  critics  as  literary  for  a 
purpose — to  reform  the  English  morals  of  his  day. 
Hannah  More  may  have  been  an  able  and  estimable 
woman  and  authoress,  but  the  average  Englishman  and 
the  average  man  is  too  worldly,  it  is  urged,  to  enjoy  his 
literature  prepared  and  dispensed  just  as  she  insisted  on 
giving  it.      Cowper  and  Blair,    Campbell  and  Maria 


164  LITEEATUltE 

Edgewortli  and  Jane  Austen  and  Martin  Tupper  came, 
to  an  extent,  under  the  same  condemnation,  while,  by 
way  of  literary  and  mental  relief,  the  Englishmen  of  that 
day  betook  themselves  to  the  natural  and  sprightly  pages 
of  Goldsmith  and  Sidney  Smith;  of  Sheridan  and  Bums 
and  Lamb  and  Scott,  even  at  the  risk  of  passing  to  the 
other  extreme.  The  immense  influence  of  Lord  Byron 
in  his  day  and  later  is  partly  attributable  to  this  same 
opposition  to  the  professionally  ethical.  Eecent  critics 
have  not  hesitated  to  question  the  method  of  so  pro- 
nounced an  educator  and  author  as  Dr.  Thomas  Arnold, 
of  Eugby,  in  keeping  his  ethical  intent  so  prominently 
before  his  pupils  and  readers  as  at  length  to  reduce  it  to 
what  Taine  calls,  the  commonplace,  and  awaken  thereby 
a  feeling  of  aversion.  It  is  not  altogether  aside  from 
truth  to  suggest  that  the  opposite  course  assumed  by  his 
gifted  son,  Matthew  Arnold,  may  have  been  in  part 
occasioned  by  this  indiscreet  procedure.  All  this  is 
necessary  by  way  of  caution,  and  in  no  sense  militates 
against  the  theory  that  literature  in  its  essential  nature 
and  purpose  should  conserve  and  express  truth  and 
purity,  should  be  ethical  in  spirit  and  final  result,  it 
being  the  part  of  its  best  exponents  to  keep  this  side  the 
line  of  the  professional  moralist  and  not  to  make  a  show 
of  goodness  in  their  character  as  authors. 

A  brief  examination  of  literature  as  related  to  doubt 
and  unbelief  is  in  place.  The  reference  here  is  to  litera- 
ture as  denying  that  there  is  any  essential  or  even  formal 
connection  between  letters  and  morality.  Any  such  ele- 
ment is  ignored  j  with  the  inevitable  result  that  such  a 
type  of  literature  is  found  at  length  to  be  an  outspoken 
exponent  of  infidelity  and  skepticism.  The  denial  of  the 
ethical  leads  to  the  assertion  of  the  unethical.     !Not  that 


LITERATURE  AND  ETHICS  165 

there  is  an  inevitable  tendency  in  the  highest  literary  art 
to  take  on  such  form,  which  has  sometimes  been  asserted 
both  as  to  philosophy  and  letters,  nor  that  the  skeptical 
element  or  tendency  is  at  all  the  dominant  one  in  the 
ablest  literature,  but  that  in  Continental  and  English 
literature  there  is  enough  of  this  to  demand  the  careful 
examination  of  the  student  into  its  causes,  the  varied 
forms  and  periods  of  its  manifestation,  the  results  of  it 
in  literature  itself  and  kindred  spheres,  and  the  best 
means  by  which  it  may  be  minimized  or  eliminated.  As 
to  its  causes,  apart  from  the  inherent  human  tendency  to 
misinterpret  or  evade  the  truth,  an  unethical  literature 
is  generally  the  fruit  of  a  skeptical  philosophy  or  science, 
or  due  at  times  to  those  exceptional  crises  in  national 
life  and  history  when  the  very  foundations  of  morality 
are  shaken  and  all  the  worst  elements  of  society  come 
into  prominence.  Hume  in  philosophy,  and  Priestley 
in  science,  and  Voltaire  in  French  national  life  are  suffi- 
cient proofs  of  this  connection.  As  to  forms  and  periods, 
they  may  be  said  to  be  as  diversified  as  the  forms  of 
thought  and  the  different  eras  of  historical  life.  Liter- 
ary skepticism  has  thus  been  expressed  in  the  forms  of 
stoicism,  or  gross  materialism,  or  in  sensualism,  or  in 
pantheism,  while  it  often  takes  the  type  of  negation  and 
indifference.  The  results  are  evil,  and  only  evil ;  not 
only  within  the  province  of  literature  itself,  in  the  lower- 
ing of  its  tone  and  the  impairing  of  its  rightful  influence, 
but  in  all  related  departments  and  spheres  of  thought,  so 
that  an  unbelieving  literature  is  at  once  the  effect  of  an- 
tecedent conditions  and  the  gauge  and  test  of  general 
national  life.  The  remedy  must  needs  be  found  in  a  new 
order  of  philosophy  and  science  and  in  purified  public 
opinion  ;  in  the  prevalence  of  Christian  as  distinct  from 


166  LITEBATTJBE 

pagan  or  antichristian  principles.  The  original  and  his- 
torical trend  of  English  literature  has  been  a  sound  and 
wholesome  one,  as  initiated  by  Csedmon  and  Bede  and 
Alfred  and  Wiclif,  and  any  existing  tendency  in  a  coun- 
ter direction  is  in  despite  of  precedent  and  the  best 
interests  of  the  English  race.  Such  gifted  poets  as  Ten- 
nyson and  Whittier  evince  the  presence  of  this  historical 
tendency,  as  Swinburne  and  Whitman  belie  it.  One  of 
the  most  decided  and  one  of  the  saddest  forms  of  literary 
doubt  is  found  in  the  line  of  literary  despondency,  where 
faith  has  given  way  to  unbelief  and  hope  has  given  place 
to  moroseness,  or  where,  apart  from  any  preexistent  be- 
lief, the  mind  has  been,  from  the  first,  under  the  control 
of  error.  The  most  significant  recent  example  of  this  ' 
declension  on  the  side  of  melancholia  is  found  in  the 
person  and  work  of  Arthur  Hugh  Clough.  Such  of  his 
poems  as  ^'Qua  Cursum  Yentus,"  ^'Qui  Laborat  Orat," 
' '  The  Shadow, "  ^ '  In  Venice, "  ''  The  Stream  of  Life, ' ' 
''Where  Lies  the  Land,"  and,  ''Say  Not  the  Struggle 
Naught  Availeth, ' '  clearly  evince  the  truth  of  this  state- 
ment.    As  he  says  in  his  "  Perche  Pensa  "  : 

"  To  spend  uncounted  years  of  pain, 
Again,  again,  and  yet  again, 
In  working  out  in  heart  and  brain 
The  problem  of  our  being  here ; 
To  gather  facts  from  far  and  near. 
Upon  the  mind  to  hold  them  clear, 
And,  knowing  more  may  yet  appear. 
Unto  one's  latest  breath  to  fear 
The  premature  result  to  draw — 
Is  this  the  object,  end  and  law. 
And  purpose  of  our  being  here  ?  " 

Tho  Clough' s  skepticism  was  sincere,  and  partly  consti- 
tutional, it  was  none  the  less  harassing.     It  almost  ship- 


LITEBATUBE  AND  ETHICS  167 

wrecked  his  sensitive  soul.  Out  on  a  wide  waste  of 
waters,  and  anxious  to  make  the  right  port,  he  tossed 
about  aimlessly  and  verily  died  at  sea.  Goethe,  in  the 
pages  of  ^'Wilhelm  Meister,"  and  ^' Faust,"  and  espe- 
cially in  '  ^  The  Sorrows  of  Werther, ' '  was  the  victim  of 
the  same  mental  and  moral  unrest,  and  never  found  that 
' '  More  light ' '  for  which  it  is  said  that  at  the  time  of  his 
death  he  longingly  asked.  So  Byron,  in  his  disappoint- 
ment as  to  all  things  human  and  his  desire  ^Ho  quit  the 
scene, ' '  as  affording  him  no  peace  of  spirit  or  satisfied 
ambition. 

There  is,  then,  a  valid  connection  between  literature 
and  ethics  and  Christian  faith.  He  who  ignores  it  is 
unwise.  Truth  has  its  claims  on  every  man,  and  insists 
upon  asserting  them  and  demands  their  acknowledgment 
and  satisfaction.  The  natural  and  the  supernatural  are 
so  involved  in  each  other  in  the  present  order  of  things 
that  he  essays  no  easy  task  who  attempts  to  disjoin  them 
and  write  and  speak  on  the  level  of  a  purely  worldly 
philosophy.  The  '■ '  mundane ' '  school  of  literature  and 
art  has  had  its  day  and  place  and  is  still  in  being,  but 
always  under  the  protest  of  the  deepest  instincts  and  in- 
terests of  men.  The  best  literature  must  rest  after  all  on 
what  we  now  term  ''the  primary  human  convictions," 
and  must  find  its  fullest  and  most  natural  expression  in 
what  the  British  poet  Watson  has  called  "the  things 
that  are  more  excellent." 


CHAPTER    ELEVEN 
LITERATURE  AND   THE  ARTS 

A.    THE   LIBERAL  AUTS 

The  use  of  the  word,  liberal,  as  applied  to  the  Arts, 
necessitates,  at  this  point,  a  clear  distinction  as  to  the 
classification  of  the  Arts.  One  of  these,  and  a  valid  one, 
is  that  of  the  Arts  as  Liberal,  and  Practical  or  Applied. 
By  the  latter  of  these,  the  Practical,  sometimes  called 
The  Mechanical  or  Industrial  Arts,  special  reference  is 
had  to  the  fact  that  the  amount  of  knowledge  needed  for 
their  successful  application  is  that  which  pertains  only 
to  the  particular  Art  in  question,  as  the  art  of  building 
or  ship -making  or  weaving  or  carving.  Each  of  these, 
as  to  knowledge  needed,  stands  alone,  and  may  be  skil« 
fully  prosecuted  on  the  basis  of  the  particular  training 
incident  to  the  Art.  One  may  thus  be  an  expert  builder 
and  know  little  or  nothing  outside  the  sphere  of  his  spe? 
cial  work  as  a  builder. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  scope  or  sphere  of  the  Ap- 
plied Arts  is  a  comparatively  narrow  one  and  contem- 
plates specific  and  practical  ends.  What  are  called,  the 
Trades,  illustrate  them. 

The  Liberal  Arts,  on  the  other  hand,  are  so  called  be- 
cause they  take  for  granted,  on  the  part  of  him  who 
prosecutes  them,  an  antecedent  general  preparation,  a 
comprehensive  survey  of  the  spacious  area  of  truth,  as  it 
contains  the  varied  departments  of  human  knowledge. 
Hence,  we  speak  of  a  liberal  training,  in  this  sense,  as 

168 


LITERATURE  AND   THE  ARTS  169 

being  that  quality  and  scope  of  study  included  in  the 
curricula  of  so-called  liberal  institutions — the  collegiate 
training  as  given  in  our  American  colleges. 

The  Liberal  Professions  are  proof  in  point,  meaning 
those  pursuits  or  callings  based  on  something  more  than 
the  mere  knowledge  of  the  calling  itself,  that  something 
more  being  a  general  discipline  and  a  general  scope.  Not 
that,  as  a  matter  of  fact  and  possibility,  a  good  degree  of 
excellence  in  professional  work  may  not  be  found  apart 
from  such  preceding  preparation,  but  that,  as  a  theory, 
it  is  not  so  and,  as  a  fact,  found  to  be  so  but  exception- 
ally. As  a  rule,  the  best  jurists  and  physicians  and 
teachers  of  the  truth  are  those  who  have  been  wise 
enough  to  base  their  respective  vocations  on  the  broad 
foundation  of  liberal  study. 

Here  we  see  the  place  of  literature  as  an  art,  that  in 
its  correct  interpretation  it  is  a  liberal  art  rather  than  an 
applied  or  a  mechanical  art ;  that  the  author  in  theory 
and  right  reason,  at  least,  should  be  the  well-informed, 
the  broadly  trained,  the  fully  educated  man,  knowing 
far  more  than  literature  itself,  and  working  within  the 
literary  sphere  with  his  eye  widely  open  to  all  related 
spheres  and  teachings. 

With  this  classification  in  mind,  it  is  interesting  to 
study  the  history  of  literature  as  to  its  possible  confir- 
mation, the  literature  of  England  being  prominently  in 
view. 

If  we  run  over  the  roll  of  the  great  Prose  Writers  of 
England  and  America  from  Bacon  to  Carlyle,  we  note 
that  the  large  majority  of  them  were  university  men, 
such  as  Bacon  himself.  Hooker,  Milton,  Dryden,  Swift 
and  Addison,  Samuel  Johnson,  Coleridge,  Burke,  De 
Quincey,  Macaulay,  Matthew  Arnold,   Carlyle  and  Sir 


170  LITERATURE 

Walter  Scott,  Thackeray,  Lowell  and  Emerson;  while, 
in  the  sphere  of  verse,  in  addition  to  many  of  the  names 
already  mentioned,  who  wrote  in  verse  as  well  as  in 
prose,  we  find  such  names  as  Chaucer  and  Spenser, 
Byron,  Wordsworth,  Browning,  Tennyson,  Holmes  and 
Longfellow,  bringing  to  literature,  as  they  did,  all  their  | 
gifts  and  acquirements,  and,  thereby,  enriching,  all  the ! 
more,  the  minds  of  their  readers. 

If  it  be  asked,  what  the  special  advantages  are  which 
come  to  the  literature  from  the  liberal  arts  and  by  which 
literature  itself  is  of  right  termed  a  liberal  art,  the  an- 
swer is  plain  and  manifold. 

(a)  There  is,  first  of  all,  the  Knowledge  which  is 
thereby  acquired,  the  actual  contribution  of  material, 
which  tho  other  than  literary,  whatever  it  may  be,  may 
have  literary  elements  and  possibilities  in  it  for  the  use 
of  the  author  as  an  author.  The  relations  of  Literature 
to  Philosophy  and  Science  and  Ethics  and  History  and 
Sociology  are  evident,  and  it  is  as  the  liberal  student 
furnishes  himself  with  stores  of  knowledge  from  these 
and  kindred  realms  of  investigation,  that  he  becomes 
richer  for  any  work  to  which  as  a  student  of  truth  he 
may  be  called. 

When  we  think,  for  a  moment,  of  the  vastness  of  this 
field  of  truth,  it  will  appear  what  a  privilege  is  opened 
up  to  the  inquiring  mind  and  how  such  truth  may  be 
utilized. 

(6)  But,  further,  there  is  secured  by  this  process  a 
Comprehensiveness  of  mind  more  valuable  by  far  than 
any  special  branch  or  department  to  which  the  student 
of  letters  may  give  his  attention — that  mental  scope 
and  breadth  and  freedom  of  view  which,  next  to  the 
truth  itself,  is  important. 


LITERATTJBE  AND   THE  ABT8  171 

I  Liberal  study,  as  liberal,  opens  and  elevates  the  mind; 
sets  the  faculties  free  to  range  at  will  and  to  do  their 
best  work ;  stimulates,  thereby,  all  the  dormant  energies 
of  the  soul;  vitalizes,  so  to  speak,  all  the  mind-space  at 
the  student' s  command,  and  enlarges  that  space  and 
makes  it  possible  for  him  ever  to  do  better  things  than 
he  has,  as  yet,  done. 

Liberal  culture  is  essentially  liberative,  and  is  thus  the 
best  preventive  of  mental  bigotry  and  narrowness.  To 
the  author  this  is  invaluable,  as  it  ennobles  him,  and 
obliges  him  to  study  letters  as  but  one  exj)ression  of  the 
human  mind,  and  but  one  method  of  realizing  ideals. 

(c)  It  may,  further,  be  noted,  in  the  line  of  benefit, 
that  scholarship  and  authorship  are  thus  connected,  and 
sympathy  awakened  between  them. 

''     Instead  of  being,  in  any  sense,   antagonistic,  as,   at 

,  times,  they  have  been,  they  find  themselves  able  to  stand 

on  common  ground,  with  many  interests  in  common,  and 

feel,  at  least,  that  the  highest  ends  of  each  will  be  best 

secured  by  a  deferent  regard  for  each  other. 

Nothing  will  more  surely  or  rapidly  correct  the  preva- 

'  lent  tendency  to  superficial  authorship  than  this  insist- 
ence upon  the  status  of  literature  as  a  liberal  art,  in 

-  poetry  as  well  as  in  prose  ;  in  the  lighter  as  well  as  in 
the  weightier  forms  of  literary  product, — so  that  the  pen 
shall  ever  be  viewed  as  the  exponent  of  intelligence  and 
reason  and  logical  process  and  permanent  good.     As  the 

'  scholar  should  borrow  fluency  and  grace  from  the  author, 
so  should  he,  in  turn,  secure  that  breadth  and  depth 
which  comes  from  patient  study  and  research. 

By  way  of  possible  objection  at  this  point,  it  is  argued, 
that  many  authors  of  eminence  have  been  devoid  of  such 

,  training,  to  which  it  may  be  answered,  that  such  cases, 


172  LITEBATUBE 

as  seen  in  Pope  and  Burns  and  Bunyan  and  De  Foe  and 
Dickens  and  Whittier,  constitute  tlie  exceptions  to  the 
principle,  and,  further,  that  we  are,  beyond  question, 
proving  more  than  we  wish  to  prove  when  illiteracy  it- 
self, as  in  the  case  of  Bunyan,  is  accepted  as  a  warrant 
able  ground  of  excellence  in  letters.  Shakespeare,  as  the 
incomparable  genius  of  English  dramatic  verse,  may  be 
said  to  be  a  law  unto  himself,  and  who  knows  but  that, 
in  the  case  of  most  of  these  uneducated  authors,  litera- 
ture would  have  gained  in  the  end,  had  they  entered 
upon  their  work  by  the  way  of  the  university.  Litera 
ture,  certainly,  upon  the  lowest  interpretation  of  it,  is  no 
exception  to  the  principle  that  general  culture  is  a  most 
desirable  possession  for  any  one  who  pretends  to  be  an 
expounder  of  truth. 

A  further  objection  is  sometimes  urged,  that  the  natu- 
ral expression  of  thought  is  impeded  by  these  educa- 
tional processes  that  belong  to  liberal  training.  This  is 
but  one  form  of  that  objection  made  to  all  discipline  on 
the  ground  that  nature  must  have  its  own  way,  despite 
all  precedent  and  direction.  This  will  answer  as  a  theory, 
not  as  a  fact,  nor  is  it  practically  applied  in  any  other 
art.  Master  musicians,  painters  and  sculptors  reach  their 
best  results  through  the  slow  and  patient  processes  of 
personal  discipline,  and  so  must  he  do  who  is  to  wield 
his  pen  with  skill  and  make  literature  what  it  ought  to 
be,  a  power  and  an  impulse.  It  is,  in  fact,  only  a  false 
training  that  begets  a  restricted  and  stilted  authorship. 
If  such  training  is  broad  and  thorough,  it  enters  as  a  vital 
factor  into  the  entire  mental  life  of  the  student  and,  when 
it  expresses  itself  in  literature,  does  so  in  freest  and  most 
natural  manner. 

It  is  here,  as  elsewhere,  that  the  ' '  little  learning  is  the 


LITERATURE  AND   TEE  ARTS  173 

dangerous  thing,"  not  the  comprehensive  learning,  so 
that  as  Bacon  expresses  it,  the  author,  to  be  a  true  author, 
"must  go  abroad  into  universality." 

That  is  an  utterly  erroneous  view  of  literary  culture 
and  of  any  culture  which  puts  a  premium  upon  limita- 
tion of  knowledge  by  the  theory,  that,  the  more  we  know, 
the  less  capable  we  are  to  vitalize  and  utilize  our  knowl- 
edge. 

The  error  is  not  in  the  knowing,  but  in  the  method  of 
the  knowing,  so  that  the  student  of  literature  as  a  stu- 
dent of  the  liberal  arts  must  emphasize  the  fact  that  they 
are  liberal  and  not  restricting,  and  acquire  them  as  vital 
elements  in  the  prosecution  of  his  work  as  an  author. 

The  more  knowledge  the  better,  only  that  it  be  assimi- 
lated and  adjusted  and  rightly  applied,  not  in  the  me- 
chanical manner  of  an  artisan,  but  in  the  natural  manner 
of  an  artist. 

A  word  is  herQ  in  place  as  to  Literature  and  The  Lib- 
eral Professions.  Literature  itself  is  often  spoken  of  as  a 
Profession,  tho  Frederick  Harrison  stoutly  objects  to 
that  term  as  unsuited  to  a  calling  such  as  Literature. 
It  may  be  an  art,  a  vocation,  a  pursuit,  but  not  a  pro- 
fession, as  that  term  is  currently  used.  If,  indeed,  it  is 
such,  such  an  author  as  Shepard  in  his  ' '  Authors  and 
Authorship,"  has  shown  from  numerous  facts  that  it 
can  not  be  called  lucrative. 

Attention  might  be  called  to  the  relation  of  the  Divin- 
ities to  Literature,  as  seen  especially  in  those  who  have 
combined  the  two  pursuits  of  Letters  and  the  Ministry. 

As  to  Literature  and  Law,  the  closest  point  of  contact 
is  in  the  sphere  of  judicial  and  forensic  prose,  while, 
even  here,  the  emphasis  is  to  be  laid  upon  the  oral  rather 
than  upon  the  written  form  of  the  thought. 


174  LITEBATUBE 

Many  of  the  great  parliamentary  and  congressional 
orators  of  England  and  America  have  written  but  little. 
Such  authors  as  Kent  and  Story  and  Blackstone  and 
Marshall  and  Hamilton  and  the  leading  constitutional 
and  civic  jurists  have  generally  confined  themselves  to 
the  didactic  exposition  of  the  law  rather  than  to  its  lit- 
erary interpretation. 

Literature  and  Medicine,  explain  it  as  we  may,  seem 
to  represent  a  more  intimate  union.  It  would  be  an  in- 
teresting study  to  run  through  the  records  of  English 
Literature  and  select  the  names  of  those  practitioners 
who  either  in  connection  with  their  medical  work  or 
after  it  have  engaged  in  authorship ;  such  as  John 
Brown,  and  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  author  of  ^^Eeligio 
Medici,"  Hopkins  and  Arbuthnot  and  Cowley,  while 
American  Medicine  is  illustriously  represented  in  the 
poems  of  Abraham  Coles,  author  of  ''Man  a  Microcosm  " 
and  of  a  version  of  ' '  Dies  Irse, ' '  and  in  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  successful  alike  as  an  anatomist  and  a  writer, 

Erasmus  Darwin,  author  of  ''The  Botanic  Garden," 
was  a  physician  by  profession,  and  the  poet  Keats  left 
Medicine  for  Literature,  the  leisure  often  found  in  the 
pleasant  paths  of  a  rural  practise  being  congenial  to  lit- 
erary meditation  and  production. 

In  each  case,  however,  that  of  law  and  medicine,  the 
central  principle  is  that  of  professionalism  on  the  side  of 
the  formal  and  technical,  and  this  is  distinctively 
opposed  to  the  spirit  of  authorship. 

The  question  is  at  present  under  sharp  discussion  as  to 
whether  or  not  Journalism  is  entitled  to  the  name  and 
rank  of  a  Profession.  If  affirmatively  decided,  then  we 
find,  at  this  point,  the  nearest  relationship  between  the 
literary  and  the  professional.     Journalism,  with  all  its 


LITEBATVBE  AND   THE  ARTS  175 

imperfections,  has,  in  theory,  at  least,  a  literary  side. 
There  is  such  a  thing  as  journalistic  literature,  coming 
to  prominence  in  the  editorial  columns,  and  to  special 
prominence  of  late  in  the  matter  of  literary  criticism. 
Full  and  often  accurate  reviews  of  current  and  even 
scholarly  authorship  are  now  found  in  English  and 
American  Journals,  by  which  the  tone  of  such  journals 
is  greatly  elevated. 

The  long  connection  of  William  Cullen  Bryant  with 
the  Evening  Post  gave  it  a  literary  cast.  Journalism  has 
certain  unliterary  or  anti-literary  elements  and  tenden- 
cies by  reason  of  the  mercantile  spirit  that  pervades  it, 
on  account  of  which  the  popular  taste,  whether  high  or 
low,  must  be  satisfied.  This  apart,  however,  there  are 
elements  of  decided  literary  merit,  while,  if  in  Journal- 
ism we  include  the  large  province  of  the  Magazine  issues 
of  the  time,  its  character  as  literary  is  greatly  increased, 
it  being  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception  that  the  con- 
tents of  these  periodicals  take  the  later  form  of  books 
and  treatises.  The  weekly  papers  of  the  time  of  Addi- 
son constituted  the  best  literature  of  the  time. 

The  question  of  the  relation  of  Literature  and  Educa- 
tion also  arises  here,  on  the  ground  that  teaching  is  now 
taking  rank  as  a  profession. 

There  are  here  two  distinct  views  that  may  be  taken. 
On  the  technical  side  of  teaching  as  an  art,  there  is  no 
vital  connection  between  it  and  literature,  but  rather 
exclusive  elements  exist.  Teaching  is  necessarily  didac- 
tic, and  the  form  that  authorship  would  naturally  take 
and  does  take,  on  the  part  of  educators,  is  that  of  the 
manual  or  text-book,  purposely  devoid,  as  it  is,  of  any 
pronounced  literary  feature. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  an  un technical  side  to  edu- 


176  LITEBATTJBE 

cation,  which  may  be  designated  by  the  term,  culture, 
and  here  we  touch  literary  ground.  It  is,  thus,  that 
there  is  at  Oxford  and  Berlin  and  Cambridge  a  high 
degree  of  literary  influence,  a  literary  tone  and  habit 
permanently  expressive  and  making  itself  felt  over  wide 
areas.  Thus  Thomas  Arnold  and  Timothy  Dwight,  Mark 
Hopkins  and  Francis  Way  land,  were  educators  and,  also, 
literary  in  their  work  and  influence,  while  it  is  not  to  be 
forgotten  that  many  of  our  most  distinguished  authors 
have  been  connected  with  collegiate  duty,  such  as  Long- 
fellow and  Lowell  and  Holmes,  of  our  own  country,  and 
Dowden  and  Masson  and  Morley,  of  England.  Not  a 
few  of  those  names  adduced  to  represent  the  connection 
of  the  editorial  and  the  literary,  may,  also,  represent  the 
connection  of  the  educational  and  the  literary,  in  that 
they  combined  in  one  personality  the  three  related  func- 
tions. All  true  literature,  while  it  need  not  be  didactic, 
should  be,  in  the  best  sense,  educating. 

B.    FINE   ARTS — ESTHETICS 

Here  we  meet  another  and  an  equally  valid  classifica- 
tion of  the  arts,  into  the  Fine  and  the  Useful,  the  basis 
of  the  classification  being  that  of  the  ultimate  purpose  in 
view,  in  the  one  case,  artistic  effect ;  in  the  other,  imme- 
diate and  practical  use.  Literature,  we  have  seen,  if 
correctly  interpreted,  is  a  Liberal  art,  based  on  general 
training,  and  is  saved,  thereby,  from  becoming  superfi- 
cial, while  here  we  note  that  it  is,  also,  a  Fine  Art,  and 
saved,  thereby,  from  becoming  unduly  prosaic  and  uni- 
form. 

According  to  Mr.  Symonds,  Every  art-type  has  a  cer- 
tain history.  First,  the  idea  is  prominent ;  then,  the 
form  ;  then,  the  latter  supersedes  the  earlier,  and  the  type 


LITUBATUEE  AND   TRIE  ARTS  177 

disappears.  This,  we  may  say,  is  true  in  part  and  to  this 
extent,  that  in  Literature  there  are  both  the  idea  and  the 
form,  neither  of  which  ever  disappears,  the  one  securing 
vitality  and  permanence ;  the  other,  flexibility,  interest 
and  popular  effect. 

Literature  is  thus  an  esthetic  art,  having  to  do  with 
what  is  called  the  Study  of  Authors,  with  culture,  in  the 
literary  sense  of  that  term.  It  is  thus  that  Vinet  writes 
— ''It  is  only  Literature  that  cultivates."  A  modern 
American  critic  speaks  of  ' '  Poetry  as  a  Representative 
Art."  So  is  Prose  and  all  Literature  an  art,  having  to 
do  with  the  faculties  and  forms  of  expression.  ' '  Culture 
and  Anarchy,"  as  Matthew  Arnold  uses  the  phrase, 
would  seem  to  be  a  virtual  contradiction. 

There  is  then  an  artistic  principle  or  method  in  Liter- 
ature as  an  art,  and  may  be  best  expressed  in  the  word 
— form.  ' '  Form-giving, ' '  as  has  been  said,  is  the  essence 
of  art. 

Literature  has  a  specifically  structual  or  architectural 
side,  as  much  so  as  architecture  itself.  There  is  such  a 
thing  as  building  a  poem  or  prose  work.  Authorship  is 
not  only  a  production,  it  is  a  construction,  and  involves 
the  element  of  technique.     Style  is  architecture. 

Tho  not  as  important  in  itself  as  the  strictly  intellect- 
ual side  of  literature,  it  fills  a  place  that  nothing  else  can 
fill,  and  is  of  such  value  that  no  degree  of  purely  mental 
excellence  can  atone  for  its  absence. 

More  than  this,  there  is  in  literature,  as  a  fine  art,  an 
artistic  spirit  or  purj)Ose,  a  something  less  mechanical 
than  method,  and  relating  literature  to  the  highest  and 
best  uses.  This  is  what  Arnold  means  by  the,  "sense  of 
beauty"  or  the  ''instinct  for  style." 

This  is  that,  which,  to  use  a  word  coined  by  Bagehot, 


178  LITEBATUBE 

makes  any  production,  ' '  litaresque, ' '  or  available  for  lit- 
erary purposes.  It  is  something  which  can  not  be  bor- 
rowed or  counterfeited  or  secured  by  study  and  labor  and 
cost  of  any  kind,  that  inherent  art-life  which  marks  a 
poem  or  essay  or  novel  as  beautiful,  in  good  form,  an- 
swering every  demand  of  the  most  scrupulous  taste. 

What  is  meant  by  this  and  by  the  lack  or  the  inferior 
expression  of  it  may  be  clearly  seen  by  comparing  two 
such  authors  as  Euskin  and  Dr.  Johnson,  or  Sir  Joshua 
Eeynolds  and  Edmund  Burke.  In  each  of  these  authors 
alike,  all  the  intellectual  qualities  of  high  authorship  are 
found.  Each  of  them  pursued  literature  as  a  liberal  art, 
but  it  was  reserved  for  Euskin  and  Eeynolds  to  express 
in  their  works  the  artistic  side  of  letters,  of  which  the 
burly  Johnson  and  the  parliamentarian  Burke  knew  but 
little. 

Longinus  and  St.  Beuve,  Keats  and  Cousin  instinct- 
ively illustrated  it,  so  that,  as  Johnson  said  of  Addison, 
they  wrote  ' '  in  elegant  but  not  ostentatious ' '  English. 
Elegance,  in  the  best  use  of  that  word,  is  a  proper  func- 
tion of  literature,  one  of  its  essential  elements,  and  can 
not  be  ignored  with  safety  by  any  writer,  be  his  endow 
ments  and  attainments  what  they  may. 

In  discussing  Literature  as  a  Fine  Art,  there  are  two 
dangerous  extremes  at  present  noticeable.  The  one  is 
best  represented  in  what  Mr.  Allen  calls,  ' '  Physiological 
Esthetics, ' '  the  material  side  of  art,  the  ' '  fleshly  school ' ' 
of  modern  times,  as  represented  more  particularly  in  the 
department  of  Southern  Continental  fiction  and  in  the 
verse  of  Whitman. 

Contradictory  as  such  a  type  and  tendency  may  seem 
to  be  to  the  inner  meaning  and  purpose  of  the  ornamental 
arts,  every  age  of  letters  has  inclined  more  or  less  to  its 


LITEBATUBE  AND   THE  ABT8  179 

expression,  while  it  has  been  reserved  for  nineteenth 
century  literature  to  give  it  special  prominence- 
Just  as  psychology  is  becoming  largely  a  physiological 
study,  and  the  laboratory  is  made  the  center  of  mental 
experiment,  so  literature  as  an  art  and,  thus,  presumably 
supersensual,  is  taking  on  these  material  and  realistic 
forms. 

The  other  and  more  manifest  tendency  is  in  the  direc- 
tion of  undue  formalism  or  technique,  the  dominance  of 
the  form  over  the  subject-matter,  "art  for  art's  sake," 
making  an  end  of  verbal  finish,  and  reducing  all  the  in- 
tellectual faculties  to  that  of  taste. 

In  the  light  of  this  theory,  beauty  of  presentation  be- 
comes a  prime  essential  on  the  part  of  the  writer,  and 
decoration  takes  precedence  of  meditation.  What  is 
known,  in  the  history  of  literary  art,  as  Polite  Litera- 
ture or  Belles- Letters,  is  in  the  line  of  this  extreme,  bor- 
rowed, in  part,  from  the  lighter  forms  of  French  and 
Italian  Letters,  and,  yet,  finding  a  congenial  soil  in 
Great  Britain. 

Based  on  the  false  assumption  that  the  only  end  of  lit- 
erature is  to  please,  or  that,  if  there  are  others,  this  is 
the  chief,  it  insists  upon  giving  to  mere  adornment  the 
main  attention. 

Hence,  the  beneficent  work  that  has  been  done  in  all 
literatures  and,  especially  in  English,  by  those  solid 
writers  who  tho  possessing  the  instinct  of  the  beautiful 
have  expressed  their  thoughts  as  they  lay  before  them 
with  the  primary  aim  of  enlightening  and  impressing 
the  minds  of  their  readers.  It  thus  becomes  a  question 
of  interest,  whether  Thomas  Arnold  is  not  a  much  more 
valuable  personality  in  English  than  his  gifted  and  cul- 
tured son  ;  whether  such  authors  as  Bacon  and  Dr. 


180  LITEBATTJBE 

Johnson,  are  not  more  indispensable  than  the  correct 
and  classical  Macaulay  ;  whether,  in  the  region  of  verse. 
Pope  and  Keats  and  Grey  must  not  yield  to  Burns  ;  and 
whether,  after  all,  the  Poet  Laureate  himself  would  not 
have  done  a  more  masterly  work,  had  the  hand  of  the 
technical  workman  been  oftener  concealed. 

Emerson  is  far  less  of  a  literary  artist  than  Poe,  but  a 
far  greater  potentiality  in  American  Letters,  while 
Thomas  Carlyle  has  conferred  a  lasting  blessing  on  the 
England  of  his  day  in  expressing  the  thought  that  was 
in  him  in  his  own  way,  tho  not  always  in  obedience  to 
the  formulated  canons  of  the  schools. 

This  is  not  to  place  a  premium  on  literary  careless- 
ness, or  to  say  that  the  artistic  has  no  place  in  the  per- 
sonality of  the  author,  but  it  is  an  earnest  protest  against 
the  abuse  of  terms  and  the  reversal  of  things  primary 
and  secondary,  and  means  to  say,  that  literature,  while 
both  a  liberal  and  a  fine  art,  is  more  of  a  liberal  art  than 
a  fine  artj  more  of  a  principle  than  a  method;  more  of  a 
creation  than  a  construction,  and  is  a  fine  art  only  to  that 
extent  to  which  its  subject-matter  shall  be  in  harmony 
with  the  requirements  of  good  taste,  so  that,  indeed,  it 
shall  not  be  unartistic. 

It  may  be  said,  moreover,  that  the  expression  of  Litera- 
ture as  a  Fine  Art  is  different  in  different  literary 
spheres:  more  pronounced,  and  rightly  so,  in  poetry  than 
in  prose;  more  pronounced  in  poetical  prose  than  in 
forensic;  more  so  in  narrative  and  incident  than  in  crit- 
ical and  philosophic  miscellany;  more  so  in  description 
than  in  discussion.  Hence,  in  those  authors,  such  as 
Lowell  and  Emerson,  Scott  and  Milton,  who  have  written 
both  in  prose  and  verse,  we  expect  to  find  the  artistic 
element  more  apparent  in  the  verse  than  in  the  prose; 


LITEBATUBE  AND   THE  ABT8  181 

while,  still  again,  in  the  sphere  of  prose,  art  is  more  con- 
spicuous in  Lamb's  '' Essays  of  Elia  "  and  in  his  study 
of  the  ''English  Dramatic  Poets"  than  in  Locke's  "Es- 
say on  The  Human  Understanding"  or  Burke's  "Ora- 
tions." There  is  a  fitness  of  things  here  as  elsewhere, 
and  art  as  art  is  subject  to  conditions  and  environment. 

If  we  inquire  as  to  the  grounds  or  causes  of  such  an 
extreme  in  the  direction  of  the  ornate,  we  find  a  partial 
explanation  in  the  erroneous  view  that  is  taken  of 
literature  in  general  or  of  the  vocation  of  the  author; 
not  among  the  illiterate  classes  only,  but  far  too  much 
so  among  the  enlightened  is  this  found  to  be  true. 
Literature  in  their  esteem  is  reduced  to  Culture,  and 
Culture  is  the  possession  and  prerogative  of  the  few. 

The  Humanities,  despite  their  name,  are  said  to  be 
for  the  study  and  the  cloister  and  the  library  and  not  for 
the  people  or  for  those  with  whom  life  is  a  serious  real- 
ity, if  not  indeed  a  struggle  and  a  sorrow. 

Hence,  the  identification  of  Literature  with  the  ac- 
complishments, with  the  enjoyments  of  the  favored  and 
privileged  classes;  suited  indeed  for  men  of  elegant  leis- 
ure, and  finding  its  place  in  the  mental  market  of  the 
world  only  under  the  head  of  luxuries. 

This  is  that  drawing-room  theory  of  literature  that  has 
wrought  untold  harm  in  every  age,  and  which  unfor- 
tunately receives  a  personal  endorsement  on  the  part  of 
those  authors  who  have  no  due  conception  of  their  work, 
and  pen  what  they  pen  for  personal  pastime  or  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  cultivated  only. 

We  find  the  other  explanation  of  this  error  in  the 
equally  erroneous  view  that  is  taken  of  all  the  fine  arts 
of  which  literature  is  but  one  ;  of  art  as  art,  sharply  dif- 
ferentiated from  science  or  from  any  one  of  the  utilities. 


182  LITERATURE 

Here  it  is  said  that  all  art  is  merely  cultivating  and 
refining  and  has  no  relation,  the  most  remote,  to  any 
practical  and  definite  end.  Hence,  Painting  and  Sculp- 
ture and  Architecture  are  commendable  as  arts  only  in 
so  far  as  they  are  ornamental,  while  Music  and  Poetry 
and  all  literature  are  of  the  purely  esthetic  order  only, 
having  no  element  of  utility. 

"Wrong  views  of  truth  are  best  refuted  and  displaced 
by  the  infusion  of  correct  views,  and  it  is  the  duty  of 
students  of  letters,  first  of  all,  to  show  the  essential  unity 
of  the  arts, — their  common  purposes  and  ends,  and  then 
to  show  the  unity  of  literature  as  a  liberal  and  an  orna- 
mental art,  and  its  intimate  relation  to  the  highest 
progress  of  the  race.     As  the  great  dramatist  tells  us: 

"  There  is  an  art  that  doth  mend  nature, 
Change  it  rather. 
But  the  art  itself  is  nature." 

Eight  conceptions  of  nature  and  art;  of  the  natural  and 
the  artistic;  of  the  creative  and  the  constructive,  are 
needed  in  order  to  view  either  aright  and  see  the  truth 
in  its  oneness. 

Shelley's  ''Hymn  to  Intellectual  Beauty," — expresses 
the  right  relation  of  the  intellectual  to  the  esthetic,  while 
Mr.  Dowden,  in  his  ''Mind  and  Art"  of  Shakespeare, 
succeeds  in  showing  their  logical  unity. 

Literature,  then,  is  an  art,  in  the  widest  sense  of  that 
term  and  in  the  highest  sense,  bringing  into  play  all  the 
faculties  of  man's  total  personality — will,  conscience, 
affection,  reason  and  taste,  and  contemplating  as  its 
object  the  development  of  those  powers  with  reference 
to  their  noblest  uses. 

Edwin  P.    "Whipple,    the    American   critic,   said    of 


LITERATURE  AND   THE  ARTS  183 

Agassiz,  the  great  student  of  nature,  that  he  was  not 
only  ' '  a  scientific  man  but  a  scientific  force. "  So  it  may 
be  said,  that  Men  of  Letters,  who  are  worthy  of  their 
name  and  place,  are  not  only  literary  men,  but  literary 
forces — potential  and  active  factors  in  the  world's  prog- 
ress, and  taking  their  place  as  such  among  those  agencies 
to  which  humanity  is  most  indebted  for  what  it  is  and 
what  it  has. 

Shakespeare  and  Milton  and  De  Quincey  and  Tennyson 
and  Lowell  and  Emerson  were  such  literary  forces,  and, 
when  we  speak  of  literature  as  an  art,  no  interpretation 
must  be  given  it  out  of  keeping  with  this  high  concep- 
tion. That  conception  of  the  author  which  makes  him 
nothing  but  an  artist  in  the  superficial  sense  of  the  word 
— a  verbal  decorator  and  designer — must  give  place  to 
that  more  comprehensive  interpretation  by  which  as  an 
artist  he  represents  all  liberal  as  well  as  ornate  learning, 
and  unifies  the  scholarly  and  the  popular,  the  useful  and 
the  esthetic,  in  such  wise  that  every  high  faculty  of 
his  nature  is  brought  into  play  and  every  worthy  end 
contemplated  in  his  work.  It  is  in  no  wise  contra- 
dictory to  say  that  Literature  is  an  intellectual  art 


CHAPTER  TWELVE 
THE    MISSION    OF    LITERATURE 

One  of  Emerson's  most  characteristic  essays  he  en 
titles  "The  Uses  of  Great  Men  " ;  and  he  goes  on,  in  his 
inimitable  way,  to  state  and  discuss  those  high  ofl&ces  to 
which  great  men,  because  they  are  great,  are  called,  and 
to  show  under  what  odium  they  should  come  who  are 
either  ignorant  of  the  character  of  their  calling  or  untrue 
to  what  they  know  to  be  its  exalted  demands.  Among 
the  great  men  whom  he  eulogizes  are  Shakespeare,  the 
Poet,  and  Goethe,  the  "Writer;  whereby  he  specifically 
asserts  the  greatness  of  literary  men,  and  the  nobility  of 
the  mission  to  which  they  are  called.  It  is  in  such  con- 
nection that  he  says  "that  men  are  born  to  rule." 
"  Society  has  no  greater  interest  than  the  well-being  of 
the  literary  class."  "Talent  alone  can  not  make  a 
writer.  There  must  be  a  man  behind  the  book, ' '  and  so 
on.  We  find  him  devoting  separate  essays  to  distinctly 
literary  topics,  such  as,  "The  Man  of  Letters,"  "The 
Progress  of  Culture, "  "  The  Poet, "  "  Literary  Ethics, ' ' 
and  "Literature"  itself,  as  if  he  would  feign  express 
his  high  appreciation  of  all  such  work  and  of  those  com- 
mitted to  it.  He  speaks  of  "the  power  and  the  joy 
that  belong  to  it  and  its  high  office  in  evil  times." 

It  is  a  matter  of  sincere  regret,  as  well  as  surprise, 
that  many  of  the  views  of  the  purpose  and  mission  of 
literature  now  prevailing  are  either  base  and  belittling 
or,  if  legitimate,  far  below  the  standard  of  correct  literary 
judgment. 

184 


THE  MISSION  OF  LITEBATTJRE  185 

With  some,  the  necessities  of  life  are  such  that  they 
are  led  to  reduce  literary  work  to  the  level  of  the  indus- 
tries, and  to  wield  the  peu  as  they  would  j)ly  a  trade  or 
perform  the  drudgery  of  professional  and  perfunctory 
service.  Not  a  few  English  writers,  Spenser,  Dryden, 
and  Dr.  Johnson,  for  instance, — not  to  speak  of  such  an 
author  as  Savage,  who  died  a  pauper  with  j^en  in  hand, 
— have  been  thus  obliged  to  write  for  bread  and  to  re- 
duce the  theory  of  litei'ature  to  a  purely  practical  and 
economic  art. 

With  others,  desire  for  fame  is  the  only  end  of  letters; 
and  prose  and  verse  are  but  media  through  which  they 
come  to  the  realization  of  their  worldly  ambition. 
Hence,  when  they  write,  immediate  or  ultimate  success, 
in  the  sense  of  personal  popularity,  is  the  governing 
motive;  and  they  are  the  veriest  slaves  of  what  Milton 
calls,  ^'that  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds."  Here,  the 
man  of  letters  is  on  a  level  with  any  other  aspirant  for 
distinction,  and  has  no  higher  claim  to  the  respect  and 
gratitude  of  men. 

Still  others  accept  the  common  opinion — in  itself  legit- 
imate— that  the  end  of  authorship  is  the  pleasure  of  the 
reader,  the  gratification  of  taste  or  one's  sense  of  beauty. 
This  is  the  esthetic  or  cultured  side  of  literature, — good  as 
far  as  it  goes,  but  far  below  the  most  desirable  standard 
of  authorship.  Even  in  poetry  this  is  a  subordinate 
motive;  and  more  especially  is  it  so  in  the  great  depart- 
ment of  prose. 

Again,  it  is  said,  with  conscious  pride,  that  self-expres- 
sion is  the  end  of  literature — the  unveiling  of  the  author's 
innermost  self  and  thought  simply  for  the  sake  of  the 
self- revelation.  As  Schleiermacher,  the  great  German 
theologian,  said  that  he  would  be  satisfied  and  ready  to 


186  LITEBATVBE 

die,  could  he  but  give  utterance  to  himself,  so  here,  thi 
author  is  an  exponent  of  his  own  personality,  and  litera 
ture  is,  in  the  best  sense,  an  autobiography.  Of  all  the 
possible  purposes  of  literature  thus  far  stated,  this  is, 
beyond  question,  the  worthiest,  in  that  it  has  a  mental 
and  a  spiritual  side,  and  exalts  literature  above  the  plane 
of  the  mercantile  and  artistic.  Still,  it  is  in  its  essence 
a  selfish  end,  and  has  this  element  in  common  with  all 
the  others.  It  is,  as  stated,  the  autobiographical  or 
egotistic  side  of  literature,  and,  in  an  extreme  and  ex- 
clusive way,  would  examine  literature  only  in  the  light 
of  the  personal  equation  and  as  a  record  of  personal 
experience. 

All  these  ends — economic  benefit,  fame  and  gratifi- 
cation, taste  and  individual  utterance — literature,  when 
properly  viewed,  may  and  does  have;  but,  if  it  have 
nothing  more  than  these,  it  can  scarcely  be  said  to  take 
its  place  among  the  great  activities  of  the  world,  nor  to 
enter  as  a  factor  into  the  world's  best  civilization. 

The  interesting  question,  then,  that  here  arises  is: 
What  constitutes  the  real  mission  of  literature, — what 
makes  the  man  of  letters  and  his  work  potential  for  good  ! 
We  answer  :  (1)  The  conception,  embodiment,  and  in- 
terpretation of  some  great  idea  or  principle.  (2)  The 
correct  interpretation  of  the  spirit  of  the  age.  (3)  The 
interpretation  of  human  nature  to  itself  and  to  the  world. 
(4)  The  presentation  and  enforcement  of  high  ideals. 

1.  The  conception,  embodiment,  and  interpretation  of' 
some  great  idea  or  principle. 

We  are  here  in  the  sphere  of  the  intellectual  in  litera-| 
ture,  and  of  genius,  also, — of  original  and  independent 
thinking  on  the  part  of  the  author.     There  is  nothing 


THE  MISSION  OF  LITEBATVBE  187 

here  that  savors  in  the  least  of  the  commonplace,  or  of 
servile  imitation  of  the  reflections  and  opinions  of  others. 
The  author,  in  this  view  of  his  work,  feels  that  he  stands 
alone,  and  is  responsible  for  his  own  thinking;  that  he 
must  have  a  special  message  to  his  fellow  men  as  con- 
stituting a  reason  for  his  utterance  j  and  that,  in  the 
true  Baconian  sense,  he  is  to  add  to  the  sum  of  human 
truth.  He  must  be,  as  Emerson  states  it,  '^a  man  capa- 
ble of  ideas," — capable,  we  may  add,  of  so  embodying 
them  as  to  meet  the  demands  of  educated  taste. 

It  is  by  this  standard  that  all  literatures  may  be  tested 
as  superior  or  inferior  ;  and  to  this  court  of  final  appeal 
must  all  books  and  authors  be  summoned.  Have  they  or 
have  they  not  some  intense,  germinal,  comprehensive 
idea  that  gives  them  vitality  and  character,  and  insures 
their  perpetuity  %  Are  they  so  instinct  with  thought  or 
personality  as  to  throb  and  pulsate  with  it,  and  to  seek 
to  deliver  themselves  of  it  to  those  who  are  waiting  for 
and  needing  it.  Of  such  qualities  are  :  Dante's  ''Divine 
Comedy, ' '  the  ' '  Iliad ' '  and  ' '  Odyssey, "  ' '  Paradise 
Lost,"  "Beowulf,"  ''Evangeline,"  and  the  "Idylls  of 
the  King."  Such  are  the  great  tragedies  of  ^schylus 
and  Eacine  and  Lessing  and  Shakespeare,  the  "Comus" 
of  Milton,  and  the  "Cathedral"  of  Lowell.  In  prose, 
Bacon's  "Advancement  of  Learning,"  and  the  great 
essays  of  De  Quincey,  of  Burke,  and  of  Thomas  Carlyle 
are  such.  The  essays  of  Emerson,  with  scarcely  an  ex- 
ception, are  of  this  high  character, — proofs  in  point  of 
his  conscientious  desire  to  realize  his  literary  ideals. 

Tennyson' s  "  In  Memoriam  "  is  as  notable  an  example 
as  modern  literature  affords  of  this  first  and  noblest  mis- 
sion of  letters.  Tho  entitled  an  "Elegy,"  and  written 
to  commemorate  the  virtues  of  the  poet's  personal  friend, 


188  LITERATURE 

— and,  in  this  sense,  appropriately  restricted  in  its  range, 
— it  takes  up  and  develops  the  great  ideas  of  God  and 
the  universe  ;  of  man  and  the  soul  and  duty  and  destiny; 
of  life  and  death  and  immortality  ;  of  good  and  evil, 
right  and  wrong ;  of  science,  philosophy,  ethics,  and  re- 
ligion ;  so  as,  in  a  word,  virtually  to  cover  the  spacious 
area  of  truth,  and  to  make  the  reader  feel  that  he  is 
dealing  with  the  profoundest  problems  of  earth  and 
heaven.  Hence,  ''In  Memoriam"  is  something  more 
and  greater  than  a  mere  poem.  It  is  a  kind  of  compen- 
dium of  theology  and  philosophy,  of  the  Divinities  and 
Humanities  in  new  and  striking  form  ;  furnishing  food 
for  thought  to  every  thinking  man  who  reads  it. 

Hence,  to  our  mind,  the  fame  of  Tennyson  and  its  per- 
manence rest  more  upon  such  a  product  as  this  than 
upon  any  other  of  his  works.  ' '  Maud, "  ' '  The  Princess, ' ' 
" Lady  Godiva, "  ''Enoch  Arden,"  are  choice  and  at- 
tractive poems,  but  scarcely  to  be  cited  in  the  same  con- 
nection with  this  poetic  masterpiece. 

Similarly  rich  in  these  qualities  is  the  marvelous  genius 
of  the  Shakespearian  drama  ;  making  that  classification 
just  which  insists  upon  placing  Shakespeare  by  himself, 
as  having  no  legitimate  rival  in  the  province  of  English 
literature.  Most  of  the  Shakespearian  plays  evince  this 
first  condition  of  literary  greatness,  in  their  respective 
embodiment  of  some  great  thought. 

Milton's  "Paradise  Eegained"  and  "Samson"  are 
unworthy  of  the  author  of  "Paradise  Lost"  and' 
"Comus"  ;  and  the  illustrious  Puritan  poet  often  de-l 
scends  to  a  still  lower  level  of  poetic  art.  So  with' 
Browning  and  Tennyson  and  Longfellow  and  Lowell,  i 
But  Shakespeare  is  uniformly  great ;  and  the  question! 
with  the   critic  is,  which,  among  an   extended  list  of 


TEE  MISSION  OF  LITER ATTfBE  189 

notable  poems,  is  the  most  conspicuously  so.  Such  is 
the  first  purpose  of  literature, — to  propagate  great  ideas; 
the  only  condition  being  that  they  shall  be  presented  in 
literary  rather  than  in  technical  or  educational  form. 

The  difference  between  Bacon  in  his  ' '  Essays ' '  and  in 
his  '■ '  Novum  Organum ' '  lies  not  in  the  presence  or  ab- 
sence of  ideas,  but  in  the  literary  presentation  of  such 
ideas  in  the  one,  and  their  philosophical  presentation  in 
the  other.  There  is  the  same  difference  between  Mill's 
^'Autobiography"  and  his  "Treatise  on  Logic,"  or,  in 
general,  between  any  work  that  is  textual  and  didactic 
and  one  that  is  offered  in  the  accepted  forms  of  prose 
and  verse.  Literature  is  thus  the  embodiment  of  ideas. 
As  such,  it  is  suggestive,  stimulating,  and  inspiring,  and 
commends  itself  to  all  who  aim  at  mental  discipline  and 
the  study  of  truth. 

2.   The  correct  interpretation  of  the  spirit  of  the  age. 

It  is  here  important  to  note  that  literature  embraces 
two  purposes — in  a  sense,  separate,  and  yet,  in  the  last 
analysis,  united.  The  one  contemplates  general  and 
remote  effects ;  the  other,  those  that  are  more  specific, 
local,  and  immediate.  The  one  has  reference  to  the  lit- 
erature of  a  nation  in  its  sum  total,  and  in  its  historical 
influence  from  first  to  last ;  the  other  views  it  as  opera- 
tive in  any  particular  age,  and  notes  the  manner  in 
which  it  affects  the  thought  and  feeling  and  activities  of 
that  age.  The  mission  of  English  literature  may  thus  be 
examined  as  a  consecutive  and  permanent  influence  from 
the  beginning, — from  Chaucer  to  Tennyson  and  Lowell, 
— or  it  may  be  studied  in  its  successive  and  separate 
stages — Elizabethan,  Augustan,  and  Victorian — as  repre- 
sentative epochs  of  national  and  literary  life. 


190  LITEBATUBB 

In  the  discussion  before  us,  it  is  not  important  sharply 
to  distinguish  these  two  types  of  influence,  seeing  that 
they  are  virtually  one.  Literature  is  to  interpret  the 
spirit  of  the  age,  either  at  any  one  period  of  its  national 
development  or  all  along  the  line  of  that  development; 
and  the  more  fully  that  a  literature  does  this  continuously, 
without  serious  and  abrupt  cessation  or  decline,  the  more 
fully  does  it  subserve  its  purpose  and  hold  its  claim  to 
eminence.  What  are  called  ''golden  ages"  in  letters 
are  so  partly  because  of  the  fact  that,  at  such  eras, 
authors  have  the  most  fully  succeeded  in  catching  and 
embodying  the  spirit  of  the  time;  interpreting  correctly 
its  great  historic  and  social  features,  and  thus  making 
their  work  at  the  same  time  a  cause  and  an  effect  of  such 
special  development.  Such  was  the  Augustan  age  in 
Rome  and  the  Periclean  in  Greece. 

Nor  is  it  only  in  eras  of  special  excellence  that  such  a 
principle  is  seen.  The  fifteenth  century  in  England 
may  be  said  to  have  failed  signally  in  producing  any 
high  type  of  literature;  and  yet  it  would  be  untrue  to 
hold  that  its  literature  failed  to  reflect  at  all  the  temper 
of  the  time.  The  literature  was  inferior  because  the  age 
was  such.  A  high  order  of  prose  and  verse  at  such  an 
era  would  have  been  as  much  out  of  place  as  mediocrity 
in  the  days  of  Elizabeth  or  Anne. 

What  is  demanded  of  authors,  however,  in  periods  of 
depression  and  decline,  is  to  rebuke  and  reform  the  age 
at  the  very  time  of  revealing  its  type  and  spirit,  instead 
of  assuming  an  attitude  of  indifference  toward  it,  or 
resting  content  in  simply  being  its  representatives  and 
exponents.  It  is  thus  that  in  every  such  decline  there 
have  been  always  a  few  choice  spirits  who  succeeded  in 
pointing  out  to  their  generation  a  higher  way;  insisting 


THE  MISSION  OF  LITERATUBE  191 

that  they  should  enter  and  follow  it.  Such  men  were 
Lydgate  and  Malory  and  Skelton  and  Caxton,  between 
the  death  of  Chaucer  and  the  coronation  of  Henry  VIII. 
Critics  speak  of  literature  as  a  social  and  civic  force. 
This  is  but  another  way  of  stating  the  point  in  question. 
It  was  so  in  Greece,  as  the  government  was  democratic 
or  despotic;  in  Eome,  before  and  after  the  fall  of  the 
Empire;  in  Arabia  and  Spain,  under  the  influence  of  the 
Caliphs;  in  Northern  Europe,  especially  in  England. 
English  prose  miscellany,  as  Drake  has  traced  its  his- 
tory, clearly  reveals  this  side  of  the  mission  of  litera- 
ture; so  that  Addison  and  Steele,  in  the  Spectator,  the 
Taller,  the  Freeholder,  and  the  Guardian,  may  be  said  to 
have  photographed  the  manners  and  politics  of  the 
day.  So  did  Swift,  in  his  ''Gulliver's  Travels"  and 
''Drapier's  Letters."  So  has  Lowell  done,  in  the 
' '  Biglow  Papers, ' '  and  Curtis,  in  his  ' '  Potiphar  Papers. ' ' 

3.  Closely  connected  with  the  last-mentioned  mission 
of  literature  is  another — the  interpretation  of  human 
nature  to  itself  and  to  the  world. 

This  is  the  subjective  office  of  literature  as  a  revealer 
of  interior  and  personal  life.  In  this  sense,  literature  is 
a  psychology;  a  manifestation  of  mind  and  will  and  con- 
science and  character;  a  study  of  man  and  men;  a  full- 
sized  portrait  of  the  joys  and  sorrows,  the  faults  and 
follies,  the  strength  and  weakness,  the  whims  and  fancies, 
the  struggles  and  achievements,  the  glory  and  the  shame 
of  man;  a  disclosure  of  him  at  his  best  and  his  worst. 
Hence  it  is  that  literature  demands,  at  this  point,  a 
master-hand  to  delineate  humanity  correctly.  A  de- 
velopment of  mere  esthetic  taste  will  not  do ;  a  superficial 
acquaintance  with  men  and  books  will  not  do;  nor  will 


192  LITEBATUBE 

anything  do,  in  the  line  of  necessary  equipment,  save  a 
catholic  and  comprehensive  mind,  a  keen  and  sympa- 
thetic insight  into  men  and  things,  and  an  unswerving 
purpose  to  be  true  to  facts. 

There  are  two  or  three  departments  of  literary  work 
in  which  this  particular  function  of  literature  may  be 
and  has  been  best  expressed — viz.,  the  drama,  fiction, 
satire,  and  humor.  In  each  of  these  forms  of  verse  and 
prose,  the  interpretation  of  human  nature  to  itself  and 
to  the  world  is  the  primary  motive.  So  far  as  the  drama 
is  concerned,  it  is  best  evinced  on  the  side  of  comedy,  — 
what  is  called  specifically  the  ''comedy  of  manners," 
wherein,  according  to  Shakespeare,  the  mirror  is  held 
up  to  nature,  and  "all  the  world  's  a  stage  and  all  the 
men  and  women  merely  players."  In  this  sense,  the 
dramatist  is  simply  a  delineator  or  portrait-painter,  and 
seeks  to  do  with  his  pen  what  the  artist  does  with  brush 
and  pencil  and  chisel. 

So  in  fiction,  on  its  realistic  side,  whether  we  speak  of 
the  novels  of  fact,  of  feeling,  of  manners,  or  of  purpose, — 
of  Scott,  of  Charlotte  Bronte,  of  Dickens,  or  of  George 
Eliot.  Eevelation  of  the  inner  man  to  his  fellow  men 
and  to  himseK,  by  an  impartial  observer,  is  the  object. 
In  fiction,  as  in  the  drama,  impersonation  and  charac- 
terization are  the  end,  which  very  terms  indicate  the 
point  in  question. 

In  the  spacious  field  of  satire  and  humor  also,  and  in 
the  manifold  forms  that  they  assume — the  serio-comic  or 
mock-heroic,  sarcasm  and  innuendo,  repartee  and  invec- 
tive,— representation  of  what  is  beneath  the  surface  is 
the  end.  Thus  it  is  that  "Hudibras,"  the  "Dunciad," 
"The  Battle  of  the  Books,"  and  "The  Eape  of  the 
Lock ' '  set  forth  the  cardinal  characteristics  of  human 


I 

I 


THE  MISSION  OF  LITERATURE  193 

nature  in  those  days  in  such  striking  form  that  men 
were  obliged  to  rebuke  and  ridicule  themselves. 

The  permanence  and  the  popularity  of  these  special 
forms  of  literature  are  assured,  in  that  their  object  is  to 
portray  human  nature,  which  from  age  to  age  offers  an 
increasingly  inviting  field. 

4.  The  presentation  and  enforcement  of  high  ideals. 
Courthope,  in  speaking  of  the  literary  outlook,  says: 

"What  is  wanting  is  the  genius  to  conceive  and  construct 
some  ideal.  The  bias  of  Englishmen  to  practical  skill  has  re- 
acted on  the  national  mind.  They  respect  the  fine  mechan- 
ical forms  even  in  their  song.  The  tone  of  colleges,  scholars, 
and  literary  society  has  this  mortal  air.  Even  so-called  phi- 
losophy and  letters  are  mechanical  in  structure,  as  if  inspira- 
tion had  ceased.  The  English  have  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that 
poetry  exists  to  speak  the  spiritual  law." 

"What  the  English  critic  here  applies  to  verse  would 
apply  to  all  literature  ;  and  he  emphasizes  the  fact  that 
what  is  wanting  in  these  commercial  and  practical  days 
is  the  spiritual  and  unmortal  view  of  letters, — the  exal- 
tation and  realization  of  the  ideal  in  literature  as  distinct 
from  the  visible,  tangible,  and  merely  mercenary.  Not 
only,  as  stated  at  the  outset,  must  literature  involve  in 
its  mission  some  great  idea  or  ideas,  but  great  ideals  as 
well.  It  may  be  said,  indeed,  that  the  two  should  be 
found  together  ;  great  ideas  begetting  or  springing  from 
correspondingly  high  conceptions. 

In  reply  to  the  inquiry  what  is  meant  by  this  partic- 
ular requisition  of  literature,  it  may  be  stated,  that  it 
includes  the  imagination  in  its  supremest  function ;  a 
conscientious  sense  of  the  dignity  and  responsibility  of 
literature,  and  a  serious  purpose  to  execute  it. 


194  LITERATURE 

Here,  again,  is  one  of  the  tests  of  literature ;  and  on 
this  basis,  as  much  as  upon  any  other,  are  the  master- 
pieces classified  as  such.  The  Dantean,  Homeric,  Shake- 
spearian, and  Miltonic  conceptions  of  literature  are  of 
this  extra-mundane  order,  having  '  ^  no  mortal  air ' '  about 
them.  This  it  is,  more  than  all  else,  that  gives  to  such 
an  author  as  Emerson  his  potency,  and  goes  far  to  nullify 
any  errors  of  method  and  detail  that  may  exist  in  his 
writings.  Matthew  Arnold — all  his  faults  conceded — 
possessed  and  illustrated  this  conception  of  literature  ; 
always  penning  what  he  penned  under  the  influence  of 
the  ideal. 

It  is  this  which  gives  to  the  poetry  of  Tennyson  its 
supremest  quality,  as  it  comes  to  its  best  expression  in 
the  ' '  In  Memoriam. ' ' 

The  literature  of  the  Eestoration  was  what  it  was  be- 
cause, save  in  Milton's  work,  it  had  no  such  inspiration 
and  aspiration  ;  and,  in  the  realistic  tendencies  of  the 
day,  the  danger  is  that  sentiment  may  be  displaced  by 
facts  and  figures,  the  imaginative  by  the  realistic,  and 
that  authorship  may  be  reduced  to  the  level  of  the  trades. 

Literature  can  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  must  find 
its  main  sources  of  strength  in  thought  and  feeling,  in 
motive  and  aspiration,  in  converse  with  the  unseen  and 
infinite. 

Whether  Literature,  Continental  or  English,  is  realiz- 
ing these  coruditions  of  literary  success,  is  a  question  of 
pressing  interest.  Is  literature  fulfilling  its  mission? 
While  such  a  critic  as  Morris — himself  a  poet — speaks 
of  the  present  epoch  in  letters  as  an  ^' empty  day,"  and 
not  a  few  others  despair  of  reaching  the  scope  and  dig- 
nity of  what  they  call  ' '  the  epic  age, ' '  there  are  still 
some  who  take  a  more  hopeful  view  and  anticipate  the 


THE  MISSION  OF  LITEBATJJBE  195 

dawn,  at  no  distant  date,  of  a  broader  and  better  econ- 
omy. Thus  Stedman,  in  discussing  the  latter-day  sing- 
ers,— Swinburne  and  his  school, — discovers  a  serious  and 
recently  renewed  effort  to  sustain  and  perpetuate  the 
glories  of  English  verse,  and  thus  to  make  the  close  of 
the  nineteenth  century  worthy  of  its  opening  and  middle 
years.  Reviewing  the  American  side  of  English  letters, 
he  writes  of  the  dawn  which  may  soon  break  upon  us 
unawares,  '■ '  even  tho  as  yet  the  older  school  of  Longfel- 
low and  Lowell  and  Poe  and  Whittier  is  not  even  ap- 
proximately reproduced. ' ' 

Similar  views  are  expressed  by  Eichardson,  in  his 
''Perspective  of  American  Literature." 

''The  future  of  poetry,"  says  Matthew  Arnold,  "is 
immense,  because  in  poetry  our  race  will  find  an  ever 
surer  stay ' ' ;  while  Emerson  is  more  than  pained  as  he 
beholds  what  he  conceives  to  be  the  lowering  tendencies 
of  the  time.  The  truth  may  be  found  to  lie  midway  be- 
tween these  extremes  ;  and,  while  all  the  features  consti- 
tuting the  highest  mission  of  letters  may  not  be  found, 
enough  may  be  found  to  give  it  place  and  worth. 

If  it  is  not  the  era  of  great  ideals  in  literature,  in  the 
spiritual  sense  of  that  term,  it  is  contended  that  great 
ideas  are  still  seen  to  be  present,  and,  above  all,  that  lit- 
erature is,  as  never  before,  an  interpretation  of  contem- 
porary life  and  of  human  nature.  Our  conception  of 
literature  and  its  mission,  it  is  urged,  must  be  modified 
somewhat,  as  times  and  conditions  change  ;  so  that  the 
great  ideas  as  incorporated  in  Dante  and  Goethe  and 
Milton  may  be  no  greater  than  those  which  find  expres- 
sion in  the  representative  prose  and  verse  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  even  tho  these  latter  are  expressed  in 
more  practical  and  objective  form.    The  poetry  of  Eobert 


196  LITEBATTJBB 

Browning  may  be  as  full  of  great  ideas  as  is  that  of 
Homer,  and  the  prose  of  George  Eliot  as  much  so  as  is 
that  of  Cicero  and  Bacon  ;  while  what  is  called  the  prac- 
tical literature  of  the  century  may  be  as  thoughtful  as 
that  preceding  it,  only  embodied  in  more  vital  and  pun- 
gent form. 

To  our  mind,  the  main  difference  lies,  as  suggested,  in 
the  less  conspicuous  presence  and  power  in  modern  let- 
ters of  ideals  rather  than  of  ideas,  by  which  the  province 
of  literature  may  be  widened,  but  not  heightened  ;  by 
which  quality  and  tone  may  be  sacrificed  to  mere  amount 
and  result ;  and  what  is  called  the  inner  spirit  of  litera- 
ture be  somewhat  in  abeyance  to  the  external  and  sen- 
sible. 

If  the  poetry  of  the  future  is  to  be  the  poetry  of  Whit- 
man, as  some  suggest,  then  it  is  clear  that  the  idealistic 
will  give  way  to  the  materialistic ;  culture  and  refine- 
ment, to  the  grosser  expressions  of  verse  ;  and  literature 
become  simply  a  medium  for  the  semi-enlightened  views 
of  the  lower  orders  of  society.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  Tennysonian  conception  of  literature  is  to  prevail, 
then  it  is  equally  clear  that  the  ideal  will  have  full  scope, 
and  literature  be  kept  upon  its  higher  levels. 

Whatever  the  tendency,  however,  the  mission  of  liter- 
ature is  a  distinct  one  ;  and  the  mission  of  the  man  of 
letters  is  correspondingly  clear  :  To  hold  literature  to  its 
original  purpose  as  one  of  the  liberal  arts,  expressed  in 
the  form  of  a  fine  art,  so  as  to  secure,  at  the  same  time, 
what  is  most  needed, — the  union  of  strength  and  beauty. 

If  the  facts  be  fairly  stated,  it  must  be  conceded,  that 
modern  tendencies  are  in  the  main  unliterary,  tho,  per- 
haps, not  in  any  hostile  sense  anti- literary.  The  atti- 
tude of  the  modern  mind  toward  letters  may  be  expressed 


THE  MISSION  OF  LITEBATUBE  197 

as  one  of  unconcern, — the  absence  of  any  keen  and  in- 
quisitive interest  in  the  development  of  national  taste  in 
letters.  The  great  majority  of  writers  themselves,  what- 
ever their  preferences  may  be,  are,  of  necessity,  working 
on  the  lower  planes  of  literature  rather  than  the  higher. 
Instead  of  an  epic  or  a  philosophic  age,  the  age  is  one  of 
lighter  miscellany,  produced  in  forms  the  most  manage- 
able and  marketable.  This  has  its  place  and  purpose  ; 
but  it  is  not  the  ideal  type  as  embodied  in  the  great  pro- 
ductions of  the  older  peoples,  pagan  and  Christian. 

One  of  the  deteriorating  influences  of  modern  times 
flows  from  the  fact  that  quantity,  rather  than  quality,  is 
so  often  accepted  as  a  measure  of  merit.  The  volumin- 
ousness  of  modern  authorship  is  one  of  its  greatest 
dangers  ;  and  we  are  living,  more  than  ever,  in  the  age 
of  books.  Publishers  are  besieged  by  authors  ;  and  their 
shelves  are  burdened  with  the  rapidly  increasing  issues 
of  the  press.  Libraries  are  multiplying  and  enlarging  ; 
and  bibliography — the  mere  collection  of  volumes — has 
become  a  science,  a  separate  department  of  study  and 
investigation.  All  this  tends  somewhat  to  modify  and 
lower  the  original  standard  of  letters,  and  makes  it 
appear  a  comparatively  easy  matter  for  one  to  pen  his 
thoughts  and  secure  for  them  a  general  reading.  It  is 
only  the  emphasis  of  the  qualitative  in  literature  that 
will  save  it,  at  this  point,  from  rapid  and  permanent 
degeneracy. 

Possnett,  in  his  "Comparative  Literature,"  draws  an 
interesting  picture  of  what  he  calls  "The  World  Litera- 
ture," as  distinct  from  that  of  any  separate  class  or 
nation  ;  embracing  the  best  efforts  of  all  civilized  peoples 
as  well  as  the  fundamental  principles  of  Christian  doc- 
trine and  faith.     Just  as  church  historians  speak  of  the 


198  LITERATURE 

possible  unity  and  federation  of  all  religions  on  some 
broad  basis  of  common  agreement,  and  as  Max  Miiller 
writes  of  the  possible  reduction  of  all  languages  to  a  few 
of  the  great  historic  languages  of  the  world,  so  it  is  con- 
tended by  some  that  the  mission  of  literature  will  not  be 
and  can  not  be  fulfilled  till  this  principle  of  federation  or 
confederation  is  to  some  extent  realized.  Goethe,  in 
some  of  his  works,  seems  to  be  looking  forward  to  it,  as 
does  Herder  also.  ''Let  us  conceive,"  says  Matthew 
Arnold,  ' '  the  whole  group  of  civilized  nations  as  being, 
for  intellectual  and  spiritual  purposes,  one  great  confed- 
eration, bound  to  a  joint  action  and  working  toward  a 
common  result," — ''an  ideal,"  he  adds,  "which  will 
impose  itself  more  and  more  upon  the  thoughts  of  our 
modern  writers. "  In  a  word,  what  is  here  meant  is  the 
spirit  of  fraternity  in  letters, — the  recognition,  on  the 
part  of  authors  as  a  class,  of  common  relationships,  com- 
mon interests  and  aims,  whereby  literature,  as  a  great 
world-force  and  civilizer,  might  more  effectually  do  its 
beneficent  work.  We  speak  of  the  brotherhood  of  let- 
ters. This  is  not  confined  to  one  people,  but  may  have 
a  range  as  wide  as  the  brotherhood  of  men. 

Of  the  four  great  ofiices  of  literature  mentioned,  all 
but  one  are,  in  fact,  of  this  cosmopolitan  character. 
Great  ideas,  human  nature,  and  great  ideals  are  univer- 
sal in  application,  and  serve,  at  once,  to  show  that,  in 
these  respects  at  least,  all  literatures  deal  with  common 
principles  and  have  common  purposes,  as  true  in  Homer 
as  in  Milton,  and  in  Emerson  as  in  Lucretius  and  Pascal. 

It  was  thus  that  Shakespeare  wrote  his  dramas,  not 
simply  as  an  exponent  of  the  Elizabethan  age  or  even  of 
the  English  people,  but  as  an  author — within  the  prov- 
ince of  general  literature  and  the  specific  province  of  the 


THE  MISSION  OF  LITERATURE  199 


drama — depicting  character  iu  '^  Macbeth  "  and  ''Lear  " 
and  ''Othello  "  and  "Imogen"  as  character  for  all  peo- 
ples and  all  time,  so  that  when  translated  from  English 
into  the  language  of  any  other  people,  they  seem  to  that 
people  to  be  the  masterpieces  of  one  of  their  own  authors. 
There  is  in  these  works  that  "one  touch  of  nature"  that 
' '  makes  the  whole  world  kin, ' '  and  the  presence  of  which 
in  any  work  marks  it  as  the  work  of  genius. 

No  master-spirit  in  any  literature  has  ever  written 
prose  or  verse  purely  from  the  local  or  national  point  of 
view  ;  and  herein  lies  the  difference  between  genius  and 
talent  or  mediocrity  in  letters.  Chaucer  wrote  for  all 
men  and  for  all  time.  His  contemporaries,  such  as  John 
Gower,  wrote  for  the  England  of  their  day.  Shake- 
speare, Milton,  Burns,  and  Tennyson  wrote  for  all  men 
and  for  all  time.  Prior  and  Thomson  and  Campbell  and 
Crabbe  wrote  for  the  England  of  their  own  generation. 
There  is  a  contemporaneous  literature,  the  product  of 
literary  talent,  and  one  that  is  permanent  and  intellec- 
tual, the  product  of  genius ;  and  it  is  he  only  who  pro- 
duces the  latter  who  has  a  due  conception  of  the  mission 
of  letters,  and  is  gifted  of  God  for  its  realization. 

Hence,  literature  has,  as  its  highest  mission,  in  com- 
mon with  every  noble  science  and  art,  the  conception 
and  expression  of  the  truth  for  the  truth's  sake,  if  so  be 
the  thought  and  life  of  man  may  be  perfected  and  en- 
larged. Herein  lies  the  unity  of  all  truth ;  and  herein 
is  literature,  iu  its  final  purpose,  the  artistic  embodiment 
of  the  "best  that  is  known  and  thought  in  the  world." 


PART    SECOND 


I 


i 


CHAPTER    ONE 
THE  AIMS   OF   LITERARY   READING   AND   STUDY 


We  are  using  the  term,  literary,  in  this  connection,  in 
its  specific  sense,  as  distinct  from  such  terms  as  scientific, 
philosophic  and  linguistic  ;  as  distinct,  indeed,  from  any 
order  of  reading  that  is  technical  or  professional.  In 
any  true  definition  of  literature,  it  is  emphasized  that  it 
must  be  presented  in  untechnical  form,  and,  as  such,  be 
fairly  intelligible  and  interesting  to  the  general  mind. 
Hence,  those  books  which  are  justly  entitled  to  the 
appellation,  literary,  must  be  thus  uniDrofessional  in 
content,  method  and  purpose,  the  free  expression,  in 
written  form,  of  the  author's  thinking,  such  thinking 
being  always  mediated  to  the  reader  in  apprehensible 
and  comprehensible  forms,  the  imagination,  feelings  and 
taste  being  especially  prominent.  The  term,  literary, 
being  thus  defined  and  applied,  it  is  in  place  to  state, 
that  at  no  period  in  the  history  of  our  American  Institu- 
tions of  learning  has  this  particular  subject  now  in  review 
been  more  prominent  in  the  eye  of  the  educated  public — 
what  the  objects,  direct  and  indirect,  of  our  reading  are  ; 
what  its  best  methods  are  as  gathered  from  the  wisest 
counsel  and  experience  ;  what,  above  all,  should  be  the 
subject-matter  of  our  reading ;  what  authors  in  the  al- 
most limitless  variety  should  be  emphasized  as  essential 
and  what  avoided  ;  and  what  relation  such  an  order  of 
reading  is  supposed  to  sustain  to  our  general  intellectual 
life  and  work.     Naturally,  these  topics  are  now  at  the 

203 


204  LITEBATUBJS 

front ;  partly,  as  the  result  of  that  general  mental  awaken- 
ing or  revival  of  learning  which  marks  the  beginning  of 
the  present  century  ;  partly,  the  result  as  well  as  the  oc- 
casion of  that  decided  increase  of  interest  in  American 
Libraries  that  now  obtains  ;  and,  also,  because  an  ex- 
tensive and  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  literature  has 
come  to  be,  as  never  before,  the  essential  mark  of  an 
educated  man.  To  be  well  read  is  as  important  as  to  be 
well  bred  and  well  trained  ;  the  liberally  educated  man, 
above  all,  being  quite  inexcusable  for  any  neglect  in  this 
direction.  When  Thomas  Hobbes,  the  great  English 
philosopher,  remarked — '^If  I  had  read  as  many  books 
as  other  men,  I  should  be  as  ignorant  as  they  are, "  he 
was  by  no  means  condemning  extensive  acquaintance 
with  books,  but  only  that  far  too  frequent  order  of  read- 
ing which  surrenders  all  independent  judgment  as  soon 
as  it  consults  an  author,  and  misses  the  very  end  in  view 
by  a  servile  imitation  of  the  opinion  of  others.  Bacon's 
Essay,  ' '  On  Studies, ' '  which  is  really  an  Essay  on  Bead- 
ing, strikes  the  true  note  on  this  subject,  at  the  very 
opening  of  Modern  English  Letters,  by  insisting  that} 
every  intelligent  man  shall,  as  such,  be  conversant  with  \ 
standard  authorship  and,  most  especially,  with  that  of  | 
his  vernacular. 

Coming  now  to  the  special  discussion  in  hand,  we  may 
inquire,  at  the  outset,  as  to 

WHAT  THE  PRIMARY  AIMS  OF   LITERARY  READING  ARE  \ 

First  of  all,  is  Information  or  Enlightenment.  "We  are 
to  seek  facts  and  truths  for  practical  use.  As  Bacon 
states  it — '^Beading  maketh  a  full  man,  so  that  if  a  man 
read  little,  he  had  need  to  have  much  cunning  to  seem  to 
know  that  he  doth  not."     Literary  Equipment  is  the 


LITER ABY  READING  205 

first  need  of  the  student  of  letters,  and  this  determines 
the  first  purpose  of  his  work.  "What  are  the  most  avail- 
able and  important  literary  data  is  the  question  at  issue, 
so  that  the  student  of  books  shall  have  at  his  command 
the  knowledge  he  needs.  It  is  just  here  that  one  of  the 
most  important  functions  of  a  Library  as  an  educational 
agency  is  seen,  in  that  it  is,  in  Old  English  phrase,  the 
storehouse  of  books,  the  treasury  of  information  for  the 
inquiring  mind,  the  base  of  supplies,  always  accessible, 
and  ever  inviting  the  seeker  to  new  discovery  of  fact  and 
truth.  All  that  is  meant  by  a  Library  as  a  place  of  re- 
search or  investigation,  either  for  the  novice  or  the 
mature  inquirer,  is  here  involved,  and  the  fuller  its  facil- 
ities are  in  this  direction,  the  richer  will  the  results  be 
to  those  who  frequent  it.  We  speak,  by  way  of  spe- 
cial usage,  of  a  Library  of  Eeference,  a  place  for  con- 
sultation on  the  part  of  scholars.  Every  Library  is,  in 
the  best  sense,  a  Eeference  Library,  a  place  of  resort  for 
the  literary  investigator.  It  is  in  this  spirit  that  LoweU 
wrote  his  suggestive  paper  on  ''Books  and  Libraries," 
as  he  said — ''After  all,  the  better  part  of  every  man's 
education  is  that  which  he  gives  himself,  and  it  is  for 
this  that  a  good  Library  should  furnish  the  opportunity." 
It  is  the  home  of  a  student's  mental  and  general  educa- 
tional life  to  which  all  his  acquisitions  converge  and  from 
which  he  is  constantly  taking  his  bearings.  If  it  be 
asked,  what  specific  order  of  reading  is  here  the  most  per- 
tinent, it  is  manifest  that  Prose  is  far  more  essential  than 
Verse,  and  that,  among  the  different  forms  of  prose,  the 
Historical  is  fundamental,  a  province  of  reading  open  to 
the  student  which  it  is  not  optional  with  him  to  neglect. 
Facts  must  be  sought  where  facts  are  to  be  found,  and  it 
can  not  be  emphasized  too  strongly  that  historical  read- 


206  LITEBATUBE 

ing,  as  it  demands  the  student' s  earliest  attention,  also 
demands  liis  later  and  continuous  attention.  To  the 
English  student,  English  and  American  History  should 
be  an  open  book  in  itself  and  its  manifold  relationship  to 
Continental  History.  He  should  be  acquainted  with  its 
facts  and  incidents  ;  its  beginnings  and  unfoldings,  and, 
to  some  degree,  at  least,  conversant  with  those  great  his- 
toric ]3rinciples  that  underlie  and  determine  it.  Nor  are 
we  speaking  of  Annals  and  Chronicles,  Outlines  and 
Compends,  which  may  be  said  to  contain  the  material  of 
history  without  being  History  Proper  ;  nor  of  History  in 
its  wider  meaning  as  applied  to  any  department  of  knowl- 
edge embodied  in  narrative,  as  Leckey's  ''History  of 
European  Morals. ' '  We  speak  of  Civil  History  as  a  form 
of  literature,  conceived  and  j) resented  with  primary  ref- 
erence to  literary  ends,  as  Macaulay'  s  ' '  History  of  Eng- 
land," or  as  Tyler's  "Literary  History  of  The  American 
Eevolution."  Freeman's  "Outlines  of  European  His- 
tory" is  not  strictly  literary,  as  his  "Norman  Conquest " 
is,  the  point  of  view  materially  differing  in  the  respective 
volumes. 

A  second  aim  is  Culture,  a  word  that  is  sometimes 
used  in  the  wide  sense  of  general  mental  training,  but 
which  we  are  now  using  in  the  narrower  and  well-under- 
stood sense  of  specifically  esthetic  training.     It  refers  to 
the  education  of  the  taste,  in  its  distinctive  nature  and 
function  as  a  faculty  of  the  soul.     Arnold  calls  it,  "the 
sense  of  beauty ' '  or,  as  applied  to  authorship  and  criti- 
cism, ' '  an  instinct  for  style. "     It  is  a  faculty,  discern- 
ing what  is  beautiful,  and  a  sensibility  enjoying  it.     As  ,' 
it  has  a  nature  and  an  area  of  its  own,  so  it  has  its  own  | 
laws  and  processes,    its  own  forms  of  expression  and  i 
methods  of  cultivation,  its  own  ideals  and  purposes,  and 


LITER ABY  BEADING  207 

must  thus  be  regarded  by  thbse  who  seek  to  realize  its 
ends.  Here,  there  is  uo  contrast,  as  in  History,  between 
the  literary  and  the  non-literary.  Culture  is,  first  and 
last,  a  literary  term,  and  from  the  earliest  days  of  Greek 
and  Eoman  Letters  has  been  so  conceived  and  applied. 
The  cultured  man  or  people  is,  as  such,  conversant  with 
books  and  authors,  with  literature  as  a  subject.  Here, 
the  student  is  introduced  into  the  province  of  the  Fine 
Arts,  as  contrasted  with  the  Mechanical  or  Useful  Arts. 
Here,  Literature  itself  is  reduced  to  a  Fine  Art,  what- 
ever its  more  practical  aims  may  be.  Here,  the  beauti- 
ful is  studied  and  exalted  for  its  own  sake,  as  well  as  for 
the  beneficent  ministries  which  it  serves  in  an  age  and 
nation  so  devoted  as  ours  to  material  interests,  and  in- 
sists that  education  fails  of  its  primal  purpose  to  the 
degree  in  which  it  underrates  the  artistic  side  of  author- 
ship and  life.  It  is  thus  that  Bacon,  philosopher  that  he 
was,  tells  us,  that  "Studies  serve  for  Ornament"  as  well 
as  for  "Ability,"  and  that  the  symmetrically  developed 
man  can  not  afford  to  neglect  this  phase  of  hmnan  train- 
ing. Hence  it  is,  that  Literature  itself  has,  at  times, 
been  interpreted,  by  way  of  extreme,  in  the  light  of  Cul- 
ture only,  as  Belles -Lettres  or  Polite  Literature ;  while 
the  Germans  have  been  inclined  to  pass  to  the  other  ex- 
treme of  the  didactic  and  speculative,  the  plane  of 
rational  opinion  lying  midway  between  these  two  posi- 
tions. 

If  it  be  asked  what  order  of  literature  is  here  in  place 
for  perusal,  we  enter  at  once  the  province  of  Poetry,  this 
fact  revealing  the  scope  of  the  area  which  Culto-re  covers. 
It  is  an  essential  factor  in  Poetry  as  distinct  from  Prose, 
that  it  mediates  the  thought  of  the  author  not  only  in 
metrical  form,  but  through  the  channel  of  the  imagina- 


208  LITERATURE 

tion,  feelings  and  taste.  Poetry  is,  first  and  last,  artistic, 
a  product  in  which  form  assumes  an  importance  of  its 
own,  in  which  the  expression  of  the  author's  taste  and 
the  qualification  of  the  reader's  taste  is  a  vital  factor. 
In  this  respect,  it  has  no  peer  or  formidable  rival,  the 
only  kind  of  prose  that  at  all  approaches  it  being  the 
romantic,  as  seen  in  fiction,  and  the  descriptive,  as  seen 
in  the  lighter  miscellany.  '^Poetry  as  a  Fine  Art," 
writes  a  modern  critic,  ^'is  possessed  of  qualities  that 
make  it  a  means  of  culture  far  beyond  the  utmost  possi- 
bilities of  prose."  Observing  students  of  modern  educa- 
tional tendencies  must  have  clearly  noticed  the  growing 
purpose  to  elevate  Poetry  to  its  proper  level  as  related 
to  Prose.  It  is  urged  that  neither  shall  be  sharply  con- 
trasted with  the  other,  but  that  they  shall  be  allowed 
conjointly  to  effect  their  beneficent  ends.  Far  back  in 
Elizabethan  days,  Sidney  opened  the  argument  for  the 
Defense  of  Verse,  which  Dryden  and  SheUey  continued. 
To  no  one  author  more  than  to  Matthew  Arnold  is  the 
English  world  indebted  for  an  insistence  upon  its  charms. 
With  this  branch  of  literature,  therefore,  the  student  of 
literature  must  be  conversant.  He  must  know  its  con- 
tent and  spirit ;  its  laws  and  structure  ;  its  masterpieces 
and  masters,  and  how  it  enters  more  and  more  fully  into 
the  thought  and  life  of  the  age.  No  one  can  familiarize 
himself  with  the  Literature  of  Verse  and  not  be  a  cul- 
tured man.  By  the  very  force  of  daily  conference  and 
contact,  the  reader  will  take  on  the  esthetic  type  and 
habit  of  mind,  become  imperceptibly  the  man  of  taste 
and  of  the  finer  forms  of  feeling.  His  poetic  imagina- 
tion will  be  quickened  and  refined  ;  his  literary  outlook, 
enlarged  ;  and  the  whole  man  be  gradually  brought  into 
a  fuller  intimacy  and  sympathy  with  the  beautiful. 


LITERARY  READING  209 

An  additional  aim  of  Literary  Eeading  is  Discipline, 
in  the  fullest  sense  of  that  term.  It  is  all  the  more  im- 
portant to  press  this  principle  in  that  the  drift  of  cur- 
rent criticism  runs  in  the  opposite  direction.  Close  and 
unwarranted  distinctions  are  made  between  literary 
reading  and  literary  study;  the  one  being,  it  is  said, 
informal,  recreative  and  discursive,  often  having  no 
other  end  than  personal  entertainment  or  diversion  from 
more  serious  pursuits,  while  the  other  is  a  substantive 
Intellectual  process  and,  as  such,  quite  aside  from  the 
primary  purposes  and  ideals  of  literature.  Such  a 
theory,  it  will  at  once  be  seen,  is  narrow  and  superficial 
and  inconsistent  with  facts,  covering  but  a  part  of  the 
area  properly  compassed  by  the  word,  literature,  and 
failing  to  coordinate  it  as  a  department  with  all  other 
related  intellectual  pursuits.  It  is  not  aside  from  truth 
to  say  that  most  of  the  errors  of  popular  opinion  as  to 
the  scope,  nature,  the  underlying  principles  and  pur- 
pose of  literature  are  due  to  this  initial,  radical  error, 
whereby,  as  we  conceive  it,  the  very  heart  of  literature 
is  emasculated,  and  nothing  is  left  but  its  lifeless  and 
useless  encasement.  Literature,  indeed,  contemplates 
personal  pleasure  as  one  of  its  ends,  and,  in  not  a  few  of 
its  forms,  as  in  fiction,  the  lighter  miscellany,  lyric  and 
descriptive  verse,  emphasizes  the  entertaining,  recrea- 
tive side  of  authorship.  This,  however,  is  but  one  of  its 
aims,  its  least  distinctive  and  controlling  purpose.  We 
are  now  using  the  term  Literary  Eeading,  as  Bacon  used 
it,  in  the  sense  of  Literary  Study.  As  he  says  "Studies 
serve  for  ability  "  or  in  more  specific  phrase,  '^Eead  in 
order  to  weigh  and  consider."  Hence,  he  insists  that 
while  some  books  are  to  be  ' '  tasted ' '  only,  that  is, 
rapidly  and  informally  read,  others  are  to  be  "  chewed 


210  LITEBATURE 

and  digested."  In  a  word,  reading  is  to  be  studious. 
It  is  to  be  made  a  business  or  vocation  to  tbe  exercise  of 
whicb  a  man  may  bring  his  best  abilities,  and  through 
the  medium  of  which  he  may  expect  to  make  such 
abilities  even  more  pronounced  and  effective.  Litera- 
ture is  the  expression  of  thought.  Hence,  if  it  be  asked 
— what  order  of  literature  is  now  to  be  consulted  and 
made  a  part  of  the  reader's  daily  work,  we  answer.  Dis- 
ciplinary Books,  books  which  make  us  ' '  weigh  and  con- 
sider," the  thought-containing  and  thought-producing 
books,  by  contact  with  which,  all  the  faculties  of  the 
mind  are  awakened  and  the  entire  mental  being  quick- 
ened and  enlarged.  Prose  on  its  philosophic  side  is 
here  in  place,  and  the  department  of  Critical  as  distinct 
from  Descriptive  Miscellany.  Even  Fiction,  in  its 
philosophic  forms;  Epic  and  Tragic  Yerse,  as  distinct 
from  lyric  and  descriptive,  belong  here.  The  higher 
classes  of  Historical  Prose  are  in  place  here,  where  great 
generic  principles  are  discussed  as  applied  to  states  and 
empires.  In  fine,  the  strictly  intellectual  expressions  of 
prose  and  verse  are  now  the  ones  sought,  where  the 
matter  dominates  the  form,  and  mental  impression  is  the 
final  purpose  of  the  writer. 

The  final  and  crowning  Aim  of  all  Literary  Eeading  is 
Incentive,  Impulse,  Mental  and  Literary  Inspiration, — 
the  deep  and  pervasive  moving  of  the  soul  of  the  reader 
in  such  wise  that  his  emotive  and  intellectual  self  is 
electrified  and  impelled  to  quicker  function.  What  we 
have  in  mind,  just  here,  is  best  indicated  by  the  term — 
Stimulating  Literature,  a  literature  that  stirs  and  fires 
the  entire  personality  of  the  reader  and  awakens  all  his 
dormant  energies.  The  reading  of  the  great  Biographies 
of  literature,  such  as  that  of  Milton,  Burke  or  Cromwell. 


LITERARY  READING  211 

will  accomplish  this  result.  The  careful  study  of  a  great 
Historical  Event,  such  as  The  French  Eevolution,  or  a 
great  Historical  Scene,  such  as  The  Battle  of  "Waterloo, 
will  affect  it.  The  absorption  of  the  soul  in  the  gradual 
unfolding  of  a  great  Tragedy,  as  Hamlet,  or  King  Lear, 
will  do  it.  The  study  of  the  great  Orations  of  literature, 
as  those  of  Cicero  or  Webster,  will  do  it.  In  fine,  the 
study  of  that  species  of  literature  which  beats  and  throbs 
with  the  principle  of  life  will  do  it. 

These,  as  we  conceive  them,  are  the  Primary  Purposes 
which  the  right-minded  student  of  letters  has  in  view  as  he 
sits  down  to  examine  its  content.  Information,  Culture, 
Discipline  and  Incentive;  the  gathering  of  Knowledge  to 
furnish  the  mind  for  its  work;  the  refining  of  the  taste 
whereby  what  is  best  may  be  seen  to  be  the  best;  the 
positive  strengthening  of  mental  power,  and  the  infusion 
of  a  new  spirit  into  every  faculty  and  function.  If, 
therefore,  the  question  be  asked,  more  comprehensively, 
what  books  and  authors  are  to  be  consulted,  we  answer. 
The  Great  Books  of  Literature;  the  Masterpieces  of  every 
age  and  nation;  with  special  reference  to  those  of  one's 
own  nation,  those  authors  whom  Eobertson  has  edited 
under  the  caption — Great  "Writers;  great  in  thought  and 
language  and  general  style;  great  in  the  truths  they  con- 
vey and  the  manner  in  which  they  convey  them;  dis- 
ciplinary to  taste  and  intellect,  imagination  and  will. 
It  is  thus  that  Lowell  insists  on  the  choice  and  mastery 
of  such  books  as  these,  as  he  states  it — ''communing 
with  the  choice  thoughts  of  choice  spirits  and  uncon- 
sciously acquiring  the  good  manners  of  that  supreme 
society."  "When  asked  to  recommend  a  course  of  read- 
ing, Mr.  Lowell  answered — "Confine  yourself  to  the 
supreme  books  in  whatever  literature."     To  the  same 


212  LITERATUBE 

effect,  Emerson  pleads  with  us  to  lay  aside  the  local, 
^'municipal"  literature  of  the  day,  and  to  acquaint  our- 
selves with  that  which  is  sublime  and  catholic  and  ex- 
panding— with  Plato  and  Plutarch  and  Pascal  and  Goethe 
and  Shakespeare  and  Milton  j  with  books,  as  he  says,  in 
his  inimitable  way,  ''that  work  redemption  in  us"; 
''that  take  rank  in  our  lives  with  parents  and  lovers, 
and  passionate  experiences ;  medicinal,  stringent  and 
authoritative  books";  with  books  that  give  us  "the 
perception  of  immortality";  books  of  "believing  men 
that  had  atmosphere  and  amplitude  about  them,"  by 
which  a  man  is  lifted  to  higher  levels  and  set  in  harmony 
with  all  that  is  good. 

In  fine,  read  Helpful  and  Wholesome  Books,  books 
that  are  sane  and  sound  throughout,  free  from  unhealth- 
ful  influence,  full  of  guiding  and  safe  suggestion,  fall  of 
beneficent  purpose,  written  by  authors  in  sympathy  with  | 
their  fellows  and  wholly  intent  on  the  bettering  of  human  1 
conditions;  written  less  for  gain  than  for  good,  less  for  | 
the  author  than  for  the  reader.  Such  books  address  | 
themselves  with  serious  purpose  to  the  solution  of  the  ! 
pressing  problems  of  life,  deal  with  fundamental  ques-  • 
tions  in  a  fundamental  manner,  and  do  much  in  their 
way  to  clear  the  atmosphere  and  make  it  easier  to  live 
aright. 


I 


CHAPTEE  TWO 
THE  GENESIS  AND  GROWTH  OF  LITERARY  FORMS 

One  of  the  most  interesting  studies  in  the  sphere  of 
literature  is  from  the  point  of  view  of  its  expression  as 
permanent  and  variable, — the  elements  and  phases  of 
literature.  There  is  such  a  thing  in  literature  as  a  settled 
condition  and  manifestation  of  literary  life, — what  the 
student  of  events  would  call  an  historical  continuity  from 
age  to  age,  so  invariable  as  to  be  assumed  as  always  ex- 
isting, and  to  be  anticipated  and  utilized  as  such.  Every 
great  nation  has,  thus,  its  characteristic  literary  history, 
life  and  personality  which  marks  it  from  all  other  nations. 
Thus,  Germany  or  France  or  Spain.  When  we  speak  of 
the  Teutonic  Literature  of  Europe  as  a  comprehensive 
type,  we  know  precisely  what  we  mean,  while  such  a 
type  preserves  its  identity  from  age  to  age  as  clearly  as 
the  Teutonic  physiognomy  preserves  its  type  of  form  and 
feature,  as  distinct  from  the  Latin  or  Asiatic. 

The  law  of  literature  at  this  point  is  just  what  it  is  in 
nature  and  in  the  various  fields  of  intellectual  activity. 
There  is  and  must  be  an  invariability  on  the  basis  of 
which  facts  and  truths  are  examined  and  a  status  or  con- 
dition from  which  all  observations  are  made.  This  is 
not  necessarily  uniformity  in  the  mechanical  sense,  nor  a 
blank  and  lifeless  monotony.  It  is  rather  the  principle 
of  unity,  stability  and  self-consistency,  by  which  primary 
types  are  preserved  and  certain  radical  and  cardinal  prin- 
ciples hold  their  place  amid  all  disturbing  influences. 

213 


214  LITEBATUBE 

Mr.  Courthope,  in  speaking  of  the  ''conservatism  of 
the  eighteenth  century,"  must  have  this  in  mind.  He 
means  by  conservatism,  the  retention  of  the  historical 
and  literary  traditions,  so  that  the  connection  between 
any  two  periods  is  sustained,  and  the  one  line  of  devel- 
opment preserved  from  the  earliest  era  to  the  latest. 

Old  English  thus  passes  naturally  into  Modern  Eng- 
lish, and  Elizabethan,  into  Augustan  and  Georgian  Eng- 
lish, not  merely  because  one  follows  the  other  in  the  order 
of  time,  as  one  century  follows,  necessarily,  the  preced- 
ing, but  because  there  is  a  closer  and  a  higher  nexus,  a 
philosophical  and  a  literary  as  well  as  an  historic  se- 
quence, that  continues  the  succession  and  gives  it  com- 
mon type  and  function. 

All  this  is  true,  but  it  is,  also,  true  and  equally  true, 
that  Literature  has  a  variable  type  and  life.  This  is 
best  seen  perhaps  in  what  are  known  as  Literary  Transi- 
tions, illustrating,  in  part,  what  Hunter  has  called  ''ar- 
rested progress ' '  in  the  life  of  letters. 

The  transition  in  German  Literature  which  took  place 
when  Luther  completed  his  version  of  the  Scriptures,  or 
in  the  literature  of  Greece,  after  the  downfall  of  the  Ke- 
public,  or  in  that  of  France,  at  the  time  of  the  great 
Revolution  of  1789,  or  in  the  sixteenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  in  England — all  are  instances  in  point  of  this 
principle  of  variation  or  development  in  literature. 

Apparently  abrupt  and  unnatural  as  we  first  examine 
them,  these  variations  come  at  length  to  assume  historic 
prominence,  and  seem  to  obey  a  law  of  regularity,  as  to 
time  and  place  and  character.  ' '  Movements  in  Litera- 
ture, ' '  says  Courthope,  ' '  are  as  distinct  and  definite  as 
what  are  known  in  religion  as  the  Methodist  and  Trac- 
tarian  movements  and,  in  politics,  as  the  liberal  and 


LITERARY  FORMS  216 

radical, ' '  and,  we  may  add,  iu  science  and  philosophy, 
as  developments  induced  by  evolution. 

This  is  a  strong  way,  and,  perhaps,  an  extreme  way, 
of  stating  it.  Movements,  however,  there  are,  more  or 
less  radical  and  far-reaching,  and  the  student  of  letters 
intent  upon  the  examination  of  what  he  calls  a  settled 
product  or  body  of  authorship,  must  be  alive  to  these 
great  and  often  rapid  changes  which  form  a  part  of  the 
literary  history  of  every  advanced  people,  alive  to  the 
evolution  of  literature. 

The  general  and  special  types  of  such  changes,  to  which 
we  wish,  in  the  present  discussion,  to  call  attention,  are 
those  included  under  The  Rise  and  Growth  of  Literary 
Forms — the  different  ways  in  which  literature  may  and 
does  evolve  and  express  itself  in  order  to  reach  its  legiti- 
mate ends. 

Thus,  first  of  all,  as  to  Prose  and  Verse.  Of  these  two 
great  divisions  of  literary  art,  we  speak,  naturally,  as  if 
they  occurred  at  the  same  time,  developed  after  the  same 
methods,  and  iu  equal  degree.  When  we  examine  more 
minutely,  we  note  that  in  every  historic  literature,  verse 
precedes  prose,  expressing  itself,  as  it  does,  at  the  very 
dawn  of  national  and  even  tribal  life.  The  songs  and 
odes  of  the  bard  and  the  strolling  minstrel  are  the  first 
forms  that  are  manifest,  and  these  in  connection  with 
music  itself  as  a  necessary  adjunct  or  medium.  Thus  it 
was  in  Southern  Europe,  in  the  Chansons  and  songs  of 
Trouveres  and  Troubadours ;  in  ancient  Greece,  in  the 
life  of  the  Ehapsodists  ;  in  old  Celtic  and  iSaxou  Britain, 
when  the  gleemen  with  harp  in  hand  went  about  from 
door  to  door  and  court  to  court  for  their  own  livelihood 
and  the  pleasure  of  those  for  whom  they  composed  and 
sang  and  played.     So  marked  is  this  priority  of  poetry 


216  LITEBATURE 

that,  in  English  letters,  nearly  two  centuries  intervene 
between  our  national  verse  and  national  prose, — between 
the  Canterbury  Tales  of  Chaucer  and  the  Essays  of  Bacon. 

There  is  reason  for  all  this  in  the  very  constitution  of 
the  human  mind,  as  well  as  in  the  history  of  language  ; 
in  the  effect  of  environment  and  in  what  is  called  the 
progress  of  civilization.  "Without  endorsing  Macaulay's 
extreme  position  that  as  civilization  advances  poetry 
declines,  and  that  a  certain  crudeness  of  mind  is  neces- 
sary to  the  production  of  the  highest  verse,  this  much 
may  be  said, — that  the  natural  and  undeveloped  mind, 
in  its  earlier  life,  chooses  verse  rather  than  prose  as  an 
outlet ;  that  language,  as  an  instrument  of  literature, 
first  assumes  this  unstudied  form  ;  that  the  natural  world 
of  earth  and  air  and  sky  and  sea  directly  inspires  it,  and 
that  civilization  in  its  less  elaborate  and  primitive  types 
offers  fewer  barriers  to  its  natural  expression. 

Prose  is  a  more  studied,  deliberate  and  developed 
form,  and  is  evolved  under  later  and  more  complex  con- 
ditions. It  expresses,  more  fully,  the  strictly  intellec- 
tual side  of  literature ;  is  embodied  in  language  when 
language  has  assumed  its  more  stable  character  ;  is  less 
affected  by  physical  environment  and  is  more  in  sympa- 
thy with  an  advanced  and  involved  civilization.  As  to 
the  development  of  prose  literature,  as  well  as  to  its  gen- 
esis, the  inquiry  is  interesting,  taking  a  decidedly  sub- 
ordinate place  in  the  Elizabethan  period,  while,  in  that 
of  Queen  Anne  and  the  first  Georges,  it  comes  into  spe- 
cial prominence,  the  present  tendency  being  in  the  same 
direction. 

So  as  to  the  different  forms  that  prose  and  verse  may 
assume.  Let  us  examine  this  diversity  and,  if  possible, 
arrive  at  some  rational  explanation  of  it. 


LITER ABY  FORMS  217 

1.  If  we  divide  the  generic  forms  of  Prose  expression 
into  Narrative,  Descriptive,  Forensic,  Critical  and  Philo- 
sophic Prose,  it  is  found,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  the 
Narrative  and  Descriptive  forms  are  the  first  in  order  of 
time,  if  not,  indeed,  of  importance,  and  this  is  natural 
and  philosophically  reasonable.  The  first  thing  with 
which  the  human  mind  has  to  do  is  facts  or  events  and 
objects  or  scenes.  These  it  at  once  attempts  to  embody, 
in  so  far  as  prose  is  concerned,  in  story  and  portraiture. 
The  events  are  narrated  and  the  scenes  are  depicted  just 
as  they  strike  the  mind  and  eye.  Here  we  have  the 
origin  of  historical  and  descriptive  writing,  and  the  ex- 
planation of  it.  Hence,  in  England,  as  far  back  as  the 
days  of  King  Alfred,  in  the  ninth  century,  we  have  the 
compilation  of  the  Old  English  Chronicle,  and  those 
sketches  of  persons  and  places  that  we  find  in  Orosius 
and  Mandeville,  the  chroniclers  and  travelers  of  Early 
English  days,  represented  in  Modern  English,  in 
Ealeigh's  '^ History  of  the  World"  and  Sidney's  '^  Ar- 
cadia." 

History  and  Descriptive  Miscellany  are  thus  expected 
just  where  we  find  them,  their  subsequent  growth  or 
decline,  also,  following  the  well-established  law  of  nat- 
ural life. 

Hence,  there  is  good  reason  why  we  should  have  a 
great  historical  school  in  the  time  of  Hume  and  Gibbon, 
and  a  great  periodical  prose  school,  in  that  of  Addison 
and  Steele. 

2.  So,  in  order  of  time,  forensic  or  parliamentary  prose 
comes  later,  following  the  course  of  civic  life  and  the 
growth  of  government.  Edmund  Burke,  in  his  great 
oration  against  Hastings,  would  have  been  out  of  place 


218  LITEBATUBE 

in  the  sixteenth  century,  as,  also,  the  great  British  and 
American  orators  would  have  been.     The  illustrious  for 
ensic  productions  of  Greece  and  Eome,  in  the  persons  of 
^schiues  and  Cicero,  came  to  their  place  in  ancient  his 
tory  in  the  fulness  of  time,  and  could  not  have  justly 
come  earlier. 

3.  What  is  called  critical  miscellany  and  philosophic 
prose  naturally  develops  last  of  all.  Modern  British  lit- 
erary criticism  does  not  take  form  till  the  very  opening 
of  the  last  century,  in  the  establishment  of  the  Edinhurgh 
Beview,  while  English  prose,  on  the  philosophic  side, 
has  been  a  comparatively  recent  growth. 

When  these  various  forms  first  emerge  and  how  ;  the 
way  in  which  they  take  on  vigor  and  function  and  the, 
influences  at  work  to  modify  and,  for  a  time,  to  annul 
them, — all  this  constitutes  a  most  attractive  portion  of 
that  work  that  lies  before  the  student  of  letters,  and 
wherein,  once  again,  literature  is  seen  in  its  relations  to 
philosophy  and  history  and  human  life,  and  is  seen  to 
bring  into  exercise  the  fullest  mental  activity  of  author 
and  critic. 

There  are  one  or  two  features  of  this  historic  prose  de- 
velopment in  English  that  may  be  especially  commended 
to  the  ambitious  student.  We  refer  to  Satire  and  Prose 
Fiction. 

A.  Satire  is  a  form  of  prose  peculiar  in  its  origin, 
nature,  method  and  purpose.  With  the  classification 
given  in  mind,  it  is  not  strictly  narrative,  or  descriptive, 
or  forensic,  or  critical,  or  philosophical,  but  these  in  one. 
It  takes  from  each  what  will  best  suit  its  purpose  ;  fol- 
lows its  own  plan,  if  it  has  any  plan,  and  works  steadily 
toward  its  end.     It  is  the  most  personal  form  of  prose. 


LITEBABY  F0BM8  219 

As  it  is  based  on  facts,  it  is  historical  ;  in  so  far  as  it  in- 
volves caricature,  it  is  descriptive  ;  as  it  employs  and 
addresses  feeling,  it  is  forensic  ;  as  it  expresses  faults  and 
follies,  it  is  critical ',  and  as  it  probes  to  the  bottom  and 
is  without  fear,  it  is  philosophic. 

The  questions  for  the  literary  student  are,  — Where  did 
it  arise  and  why,  and  how  has  it  developed  and  why. 
As  far  back,  in  English  Letters,  as  the  days  of  Alfred  and 
Hendyng  we  find  it  and,  here  and  there,  in  Hampole  and 
Langland  and  Wiclif  and  Latimer  and  Wyatt  and  Gas- 
coigne  it  appears,  until  we  come  to  Butler  and  Dryden 
and  Pope  and  Addison  and  the  great  school  of  modern 
satirists.  Why  should  '^Hudibras"  have  appeared 
when  it  did,  and  the  ^'Battle  of  the  Books"  when  it  did, 
and  why  did  not  Thomas  Carlyle  appear  as  the  great  cen- 
sor of  men  and  morals  a  century  earlier  ;  and  why  should 
satire  so  often  leave  the  sphere  of  prose  and  embody 
itself,  as  in  ' '  Hudibras ' '  and  the  ' '  Biglow  Papers, ' '  in 
verse,  and  what  is  the  bond  that  holds  it  to  the  Humorous. 

B.  So  as  to  Prose  Fiction — a  department  of  prose  thor- 
oughly unique,  tho  combining  in  one  form  the  three 
great  departments  of  narrative,  descriptive  and  philo- 
sophic prose.  When  did  it  originate  in  English  letters 
and  why  ;  what  have  been  the  varied  forms  of  its  mani- 
festation, as  in  Scott  and  Thackeray  and  George  Eliot 
and  Kipling,  and  why  should  it  so  decline  in  one  age  and 
so  develop  in  another.  Is  Lanier's  theory  that  its  pur- 
pose is  the  representation  of  personality  correct  or  not, 
and  what  is  the  explanation  of  its  modern  ethical  and 
theological  tendency. 

As  to  origin,  it  is  stoutly  contended  by  some  that  it 
dates  no  further  back  than  the  days  of  Sidney,  in  the 
pages  of  his  ''Arcadia,"  while  others  trace  its  faint,  yet 


220  LITERATURE 

historical,  beginnings  in  the  days  of  Chaucer  and  in  the 
earliest  folk-lore  of  the  English  people, — even  back  in 
the  old  British  myths  and  legends  and  traditions,  as  they 
manifested  themselves  in  Teutonic  form.  What  is  ''  Beo- 
wulf," we  are  told  by  some,  but  a  great  novel  in  verse, 
the  portraiture  in  Beowulf  and  Grendel  and  the  promi- 
nent characters,  of  what  occurs  in  every  life,  — the  con- 
flict of  good  and  evil,  the  fight  of  every  man  with  the 
dragon  that  threatens  his  soul. 

Fiction,  tho  it  be  fiction,  is  one  of  the  great  facts  of 
literature,  and  worthy,  as  such,  of  patient  and  philo- 
sophic study. 

"When  we  come  into  the  region  of  Verse-Forms,  this 
study  assumes  increasing  interest  and  complexity,  as 
shown,  especially,  by  the  fact  that,  even  yet,  many  of 
the  questions  started  long  since  are  unsettled.  First  of 
all,  the  true  relation  of  verse  to  prose,  and  just  where 
the  line  is  to  be  drawn  that  separates  them,  and  just 
what  is  meant  by  poetical  prose,  as  seen  in  Hawthorne, 
or  prose-poetry,  as  seen  in  Whitman  and  Tupper  and 
Pollock  and  Young.  Is  it  proper  to  call  such  poems  as 
Pope's  ''Essay  on  Criticism"  or  ''Essay  on  Man" 
poems  at  all  and,  if  so,  how  are  they  differentiated  from 
the  great  masterpieces  of  English  Literature. 

For  the  purposes  before  us,  these  great  poetic  forms 
may  be  said  to  be — The  Epic  and  Dramatic  and  Lyric, 
and  it  is  the  object  of  the  literary  student  to  determine 
their  respective  origins  ;  their  respective  historical  devel- 
opment ;  their  respective  influence  ;  elements  in  common 
and  elements  distinctive  ;  and  the  respective  purposes 
they  are  supposed  to  serve  in  literature. 

1.  The  study  of  Epic  Verse  might  in  itself  constitute  a 


I 


a 


LITER ABY  F0BM8  221 

separate  department  in  literary  study,  as  it  practically 
does  in  those  quarters  where  the  Homeric  Poems,  or  Mil- 
ton, or  The  ''Cid,"  or  The  ' 'Divine  Comedy  "  or  ' 'Beo- 
wulf" form  distinctive  courses.  The  field  here  is  a  vast 
one  and  touches,  at  divers  points,  the  larger  field  of  Eng- 
lish Literature  and  Literature  in  general. 

One  of  the  primal  questions  here  is — What  constitutes 
a  poem  an  epic,  besides  the  mere  fact  of  its  having  a 
hero,  and  why  is  not  the  '' Faery  Queene "  or  ''Mar- 
mion"  such  a  poem  as  fully  as  the  "  Iliad"  or  ''Para- 
dise Eegained ' '  ? 

As  to  its  origin  in  England,  how  far  back  must  we  go, 
and  is  it  true  to  say  that  it  begins  with  Csedmon  and 
Beowulf,  and  that  Chaucer's  "Eomaunt  of  the  Eose" 
and  the  old  Eomance  of  "Sir  Havelock"  and  "Sir 
Tristram  "  mark  its  later  history. 

2.  So  as  to  Dramatic  Yerse,  on  its  Tragic  or  Comic 
side,  and  here  the  controversy  is  prolonged  and  intense. 
The  beginnings  of  the  English  Drama  is  a  topic  in  it- 
self, whether  its  genesis  takes  us  back  of  the  Elizabethan 
Age  and,  if  so,  to  what  extent  the  representatives  of 
those  earlier  times  prepared  the  way  for  the  elaborate 
development  of  modern  days. 

The  Historical  Antecedents  of  the  English  Drama  in- 
volves the  study  of  the  old  Miracle  Plays  or  Mysteries, 
the  Morality  Plays  and  Interludes  of  the  middle  period 
between  the  Saxon  ' '  Chronicle ' '  and  the  revival  of 
learning. 

In  one  form  or  another,  dramatic  representation  is  as 
old  as  the  race,  and  in  nearly  every  nation,  even  among 
the  Hebrews,  has  had  some  kind  of  expression  in  litera- 
ture.    Such  a  work  as  Schlegel's  "History  of  Dramatic 


222  LITEEATUBE 

Literature"  is  nearly  as  extensive  in  its  range  as  the 
history  of  literature  itself,  or  the  history  of  civilization. 
More  specifically,  such  a  volume  as  Symond's  '' Pred- 
ecessors of  the  English  Drama, ' '  traces  the  English  his- 
tory of  the  drama  as  far  back  as  the  beginnings  of  Eng- 
lish literature,  and  aims  to  show  a  continuous  sequence 
on  to  the  days  of  Elizabeth.  Hase  and  Pollard,  in  their 
discussion  of  the  old  Miracle  Plays,  connect  the  rise  and 
progress  of  the  European  drama  with  that  of  England, 
and  thus  preserve  the  unity  of  the  history.  To  what 
extent  the  Elizabethan  drama,  in  its  incipient  form,  is 
due  to  Southern  Europe,  and  to  what  extent  it  is  original 
and  English  is  a  question  of  interest,  while  it  is  equally 
suggestive  to  trace  the  subsequent  course  of  English 
dramatic  verse  on  to  the  time  of  Tennyson. 

Why  there  should  have  been  so  decided  a  develop- 
ment in  the  sixteenth  century;  why  the  drama  of  the 
seventeenth  century  should  have  been  inferior  in  quan- 
tity and  quality,  and  why  no  later  school  of  poets  has 
been  able  to  equal  or  even  approximate  the  excellence  of 
the  Shakespearian  art,  are  questions  fraught  with  his- 
torical and  philosophical  as  well  as  literary  value. 

Dramatic  verse  on  the  American  side  of  English  Let- 
ters invites  attention,  while  the  various  subdivisions  of 
such  verse,  as  seen  in  farce  and  pantomime  and  masque 
and  melodrama,  deserve  a  separate  study. 

3.  Precisely  so  as  to  Lyric  Verse — the  other  great 
department  of  poetry.  Here  we  enter  a  field  as  com- 
prehensive as  it  is  attractive.  The  question  as  to  its 
origin,  in  so  far  as  time  is  concerned,  can  not  remain  in 
serious  doubt,  it  being  conceded  by  all  historians  of 
literature,  that  as  poetry  is  older  than  prose,  lyric  verse 


LITER ABY  FOEMS  223 

is  older  than  any  other  form,  taking  its  rise  in  the  most 
primitive  conditions  of  life,  and  having  for  its  object  the 
most  original  and  natural  instincts  of  the  soul.  If  we 
emphasize  the  term  lyric,  as  the  poetry  sung  to  the  lyre, 
it  points  to  those  earliest  eras,  when  the  minstrel  with 
the  song  of  his  own  composing  went  about  with  lyre  in 
hand  to  entertain  his  hearers,  or,  if  we  interpret  this 
form  of  verse  as  especially  emotional,  we  are  here,  also, 
taken  back  to  the  earliest  states  of  society,  and  have  to 
do  with  the  most  spontaneous  utterances  of  the  heart. 
Lyric  verse  is  thus  contemporaneous  with  the  origin  of 
language,  and  is  simply  the  most  natural  way  in  which 
man  can  embody  and  express  his  deepest  self. 

Hence,  the  large  variety  of  forms  which  it  has  his- 
torically assumed — in  ode  and  sonnet,  in  pastoral  and 
elegy.  Vitally  connected  with  the  epic  in  what  is  called 
the  heroic  ode,  it  manifests  its  presence  in  sacred  as  well 
as  secular  verse;  in  humor  and  satire  and  in  the  passion 
of  love.  So  numerous  are  these  varieties  that  they  con- 
stitute a  class  or  section  of  verse,  as  embodied  in  ballad 
and  roundel,  in  virelay  and  villanelle;  in  chant  and  trio- 
let, representing,  respectively,  the  ingenious  ways  which 
feeling  takes  to  give  itself  a  fitting  expression. 

The  relation  of  the  lyric  to  the  dramatic  is  a  study 
fraught  with  interest.  If,  as  has  been  done  by  some 
English  critics,  special  attention  is  given  to  the  Eliza- 
bethan Lyrics,  in  so  far  as  found  in  the  Elizabethan 
drama,  the  student  will  be  surprised  to  find  how  vast  a 
field  he  has  entered.  So  close,  at  times,  is  the  connec- 
tion that  no  dividing  line  can  be  seen  or  drawn.  This  is 
signally  true  of  the  Shakespearian  drama,  while  of  such 
a  poem  as  Milton's  ''Comus"  it  is  difficult  to  state 
whether  the  term  lyric  or  dramatic  is  the  more  applic- 


224  LITERATURE 

able,  so  thorougMy  does  the  one  element  fuse  Itself  into 
the  other,  and  constitute  a  poetic  unit  which  is  neither 
lyric  nor  dramatic  but  a  something  combining  both  and 
better  than  either. 

From  this  examination  of  the  Development  of  Liter- 
ary Forms,  two  or  three  inferences  of  practical  value 
arise. 

A.  Herein  is  seen  the  Naturalness  of  Literature  in  its 
highest  and  best  conditions.  Literature  is  not  a  some- 
thing external  to  the  thought  and  life  of  a  people,  aris- 
ing and  manifesting  itself  in  some  arbitrary  manner, 
obedient  only  to  its  own  laws  and  intent  only  upon  the 
furtherance  of  its  own  ends,  but  is  what  it  is  as  deter- 
mined by  some  higher  principle  and  necessity,  and  that 
is  the  demands  of  the  nation  and  age  that  it  aims  to  rep- 
resent. As  has  been  seen,  whatever  the  permanent  ele- 
ments may  be  in  letters,  they  adjust  themselves  to  the 
genius  of  the  people  and  institutions  to  which  they  are 
related,  and  to  the  temper  of  the  particular  times  or 
epochs  that  go  to  make  up  historic  life. 

Critics  have  spoken  at  length  of  the  relations  of  Litera- 
ture and  Life.  Nothing  could  better  confirm  such  a 
teaching  than  the  fact  that,  as  that  life  changes,  litera- 
ture in  its  extreme  type  and  aim  changes.  Chaucer  pro-lj 
duced  in  the  ''  Canterbury  Tales  "  just  what  the  England 
of  the  fourteenth  century  needed,  and  the  intervening 
centuries  down  to  the  days  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey  were 
what  they  were,  in  the  line  of  literary  barrenness,  be- 
cause, in  fact,  there  was  no  time  or  call  for  high  literary 
product.  The  nation  was  in  transition  from  the  old  to 
the  new;  moving,  so  to  speak,  into  new  quarters;  feel- 
ing its  way  through  storm  and  strife  and  the  bitter  feuds 


LITERARY  FORMS  225 

of  the  time  to  a  better  home  and  outlook,  and  authors 
were  not  in  demand. 

For  a  similar  reason  of  fitness  and  fulness  of  time  and 
naturalness,  the  Elizabethan  Age  was  essentially  literary, 
and  nothing  could  have  been  more  germane  to  the  new 
order  of  things  and  the  breaking  away  from  the  old  than 
that  Spenser  should  have  written  a  poem  so  medieval 
and  Old  English  that  the  force  of  the  breaking  with 
ancient  things  should  be  gradual  and  less  painful,  and 
yet  so  modern  that  Elizabeth  herself  may  be  said  to  be 
the  heroine  of  the  epic. 

So,  we  have  seen  the  drama  arose  because  it  was  the 
era  of  action  and  life.  So,  the  literature  of  the  Eestora- 
tion,  in  its  secondary  type,  expressed  the  secondary 
character  of  the  age,  as  Victorian  Letters  is  a  good  index 
of  Victorian  thought  and  civilization. 

It  is  well  to  emphasize  this  fact,  that  literature  is  a 
growth  and  not  a  mechanism;  a  native  product  and  not 
an  exotic;  that,  as  such,  it  is  obedient  to  all  those  laws 
that  control  growth,  and  is  as  essential  an  exponent  of  a 
nation's  personality  as  is  the  growth  of  science  or  plastic 
art  or  commercial  activity. 

B.  It  is  further  to  be  noted  from  this  discussion  that 
there  is  a  Law  of  Evolution  in  Literature  as  in  all  other 
departments.  The  Literary  Development  of  Europe  as 
well  as  its  Intellectual  could  be  written  and  has  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  been  written.  The  reference  here  is  not  to 
the  mere  history  of  literature,  as  Carlyle  has  given  it  in 
his  posthumous  lectures  on  ''The  Successive  Periods 
of  European  Culture, "  or  as  literary  historians  generally 
treat  it.  It  is  something  higher  and  deeper  than  his- 
tory, embodying  a  principle  or  law  of  development — 
an  explanation  of  the  genesis  of  form,   a  reason  for 


226  LITEBATUBE 

literature  being  what  it  is,  as  we  inquire,  on  tlie  physical 
side  of  this  law,  for  the  reason  of  the  existence  of  this 
or  that  particular  species  in  the  vegetable  or  animal 
world. 

Mr.  Symonds,  in  his  paper  on  ''The  Application  of 
Evolutionary  Principles  to  Art  and  Literature,"  has  em- 
bodied this  principle,  as  he  says,  ''Evolution,  in  its 
largest  sense,  may  be  defined  as  the  passage  of  all  things 
from  simplicity  to  complexity  by  the  action  of  inevitable 
law, ' '  and  he  raises  the  question,  whether  such  a  prin- 
ciple can  rationally  be  confined  to  the  sphere  of  the  mate- 
rial, to  biology  and  geology,  and  not  be  extended  to  lan- 
guage, society,  literature  and  even  morals.  It  is  not  our 
purpose  here  to  enter  into  the  details  of  Mr.  Symonds' 
definition  and  application  of  evolution,  nor  to  state  the 
dangerous  extremes  to  which  it  might  conduct  us.  This 
muc"h,  however,  is  true,  that  there  is  this  generic  and 
governing  principle  of  development  in  literature,  not 
proceeding  "by  an  inevitable  law,"  inasmuch  as  the 
element  of  human  and  national  personality  enters  in  lit- 
erature, but  still  proceeding  by  a  law  and  on  a  method 
of  its  own.  It  may  not  be  known  how  this  principle  acts 
nor  what  the  method  is,  inasmuch  as  it  acts  within  the 
mental  sphere  where  law  operates  in  consonance  with 
personal  freedom  of  will  and  motive,  but  still  we  know 
that  it  acts  continuously.  Hence,  we  speak  of  the  evo- 
lution of  the  Attic  or  English  Drama  from  what  we  might 
call  primordial  dramatic  germs  ;  of  the  evolution  of  the 
epic  and  lyric  and  satirical.  ' '  I  have  little  doubt, ' '  says 
the  critic,  "that  the  Novel  could  be  analyzed  on  evolu- 
tionary principles,"  and  he  states  the  law  in  its  most 
comprehensive  form,  as  he  adds,  ' '  The  evolution  of  the 
spirit  seems  to  resemble  the  evolution  of  nature."     The 


LITEBABY  FOBMS  227 

truth,  of  the  matter  lies  just  here.  It  is  another  illustra- 
tion of  Drummond's  '' Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  (or 
Intellectual)  World" — in  the  world  of  letters  as  one  ex- 
ponent, among  others,  of  the  spirit  and  mind  of  man. 
Here  again,  we  see  how  Literature  as  evolutionary  ad- 
justs itself  to  all  with  which  it  has  to  do  in  that  it  so  fully 
illustrates  the  very  latest  theories  of  Modern  Science. 

Such  men  as  Darwin  and  his  school  have  done  an  in- 
valuable work  outside  of  the  special  scientific  sphere  in 
which  they  have  been  interested,  by  revealing  the  pres- 
ence and  uniform  application  of  this  great  natural  or  su- 
pernatural law,  and  have,  thereby,  wittingly  or  unwit- 
tingly, done  the  best  that  could  be  done  to  unify  all  truth 
and  disclose  a  special  divine  design  in  all  things.  At 
this  point.  Science,  Philosophy  and  Art,  Language,  Lit- 
erature and  Life  meet  and  obey  the  same  great  law,  while 
even  the  religious  life  itself,  on  its  natural  side,  confirms 
the  principle. 

C.  Hence,  a  further  inference  is  in  place, — that  litera- 
ture is  no  exception  to  the  law  of  decadence  and  death. 
As  Gibbon  has  written,  ''The  Decline  and  Fall  of  the 
Eoman  Empire,"  so  must  there  be  a  decline  and  fall  of 
Literature,  as  one  of  the  forms  of  mental  life.  Thus  do 
the  critics  speak  of  the  decline  of  taste,  of  the  decay  of 
literary  sentiment;  of  the  ''dissolution  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan Drama"  ;  of  the  disappearance  of  preexisting 
literary  types  and  forms.  All  this  is  natural  and  neces- 
sary. The  Revival  of  Learning  implies  a  previous  con- 
dition of  decrepitude.  The  Eenaissance  of  Art  and  let- 
ters involves  a  similar  fact.  There  is  in  literature,  as 
in  life,  a  struggle  for  existence  and  a  consequent  survival 
of  the  fittest,  a  law  of  natural  selection  working  as  it 
works  elsewhere. 


228  LITEEATUBE 

Hence,  not  only  authors  pass  away,  but  entire  schools 
decline  and  disappear.  The  literary  mode  or  cult  of  one 
age  is  not  that  of  another.  There  is  an  obsolete  litera- 
ture as  well  as  an  obsolete  language,  and  this  obsoles- 
cence is  as  much  a  sign  and  condition  of  life  as  is  the 
surviving  product  for  which  it  makes  way. 

In  a  word,  the  ultimate  purpose  in  the  genesis,  growth 
and  disappearance  of  forms  is  the  establishment  and 
continuance  of  what  is  best  in  literature.  Here,  as  in 
nature  and  natural  life,  there  is  supposed  to  be  from  age 
to  age  a  general  progress,  despite  all  temporary  retard- 
ing of  growth  or  loss  of  particular  forms.  The  English 
Drama  is  far  inferior,  to-day,  to  what  it  was  in  the  hands 
of  Shakespeare,  but  English  literature,  as  a  whole,  was 
never  stronger  and  richer  and  more  of  a  factor  in  the 
common  good.  The  area  of  literature  has  immensely 
increased,  so  that  old  canons  of  criticism  can  not  be  ap- 
plied to  it,  but  of  its  general  advance  there  can  be  no 
question. 

Moreover,  it  is  to  be  especially  noted  that  that  which 
is  more  valuable  than  all  in  a  nation's  literature  lives 
and  passes  down  from  age  to  age  and  does  not  die,  be- 
cause it  can  not.  We  mean  the  spirit  of  literature — its 
inner  soul  and  sense,  that  which  vivifies  and  saves  it 
and  gives  to  any  one  of  its  external  forms — prose  or 
verse,  epic  or  lyric,  all  that  it  has  of  value. 

More  than  the  drama  of  Shakespeare  is  the  presence 
of  Shakespeare  in  English  Letters,  and  Milton's  great 
and  lofty  spirit  animates  many  a  one  who  may  long  since 
have  ceased  to  read  his  works. 

Chaucer's  personality  in  Modern  English  Letters  is  so 
integral  and  pervasive  that  whether  we  know  it  or  not, 
can  read  the  Canterbury  Tales  or  not,  we  are  under  the 


LITERARY  FORMS  229 

charm  and  force  of  it.  The  forms  of  literature,  be  they 
what  they  may,  are  valuable  only  as  instinct  with  that 
invisible  spirit  of  life  by  which  they  move  and  mold  us. 

In  literature,  the  art  of  letters,  how  little,  after  all,  of 
permanence  and  power  is  there  in  the  letter  only  !  Here, 
as  in  character  and  conduct,  it  is  the  spirit  that  giveth 
liberty  and  life. 


CHAPTER  THREE 
PRIMARY    POETIC    TYPES 

As  TO  the  possible  forms  of  poetic  expression,  they 
may  be  as  diversified  as  the  forms  of  literature  in  gen- 
eral, or  of  style,  as  a  mode.  We  may  speak  of  Poetry 
as  ancient  and  modern  ;  as  Asiatic  and  European  ;  as 
Germanic  and  Latinic  ;  as  Continental  and  English  ;  as 
Pagan  and  Christian ;  as  Homeric  and  Chaucerian  and 
Miltonic,  and  so  on. 

There  are  few  questions,  indeed,  within  the  province 
of  literary  history  and  criticism  that  have  given  rise  to 
a  wider  range  of  discussion,  while  modern  opinion  is 
inclined  to  multiply  rather  than  diminish  these  possible 
classifications. 

Before  mentioning  the  threefold  classification  on 
which  we  shall  insist,  there  is  an  historical  threefold 
division  that  has  obtained  sufficient  endorsement  by 
English  critics  to  merit  a  brief  examination. 

It  is  that  given  by  Devey,  in  his  discussion  of  ^^  Mod- 
ern English  Poets,"  and  is  as  follows  :  , 

1.  The  Oriental  or  Scriptural  Type.  j 

2.  The  Greek  or  South  European  Type.  1 

3.  The  Gothic  or  Northern  Type. 

The  first  is  what  Mr.  Arnold  would  call,  the  Hebraic 
School ;  Christian  against  Pagan,  in  which  the  doctrine 
of  Providence  is  central ;  in  which  ethical  purpose  is 
dominant;  a  spiritual  type  of  verse  against  the  sensuous, 
seen,  in  special  form,  in  such  an  English  Poet  as  Milton, 
or  Wordsworth,  as  distinct  from  Byron  or  Swinburne. 

230 


POETIC  TYPES  231 

The  second  is  what  Mr.  Arnold  would  call,  the  Hel- 
lenic, as  specially  significant  of  artistic  form  and  pos- 
sessed of  the  sense  and  spirit  of  beauty.  It  is  the  poetry 
of  Paganism  against  Christianity  ;  of  man  and  nature 
against  Providence  ;  of  human  passion  and  sentiment,  as 
seen  in  Shakespeare  and  the  old  tragedians,  in  Shelley 
and  Keats  and  Mrs.  Browning. 

The  third  school  is  what  might  be  called,  the  Germanic 
type  against  the  South  European.  The  crude  concep- 
tions of  the  Teutonic  mind  take  the  place  of  the  delicate 
ideals  of  the  Greek,  while  strictly  Hebraic  sentiments 
give  way  to  a  more  worldly  and  practical  order  of  ex- 
pression. It  is  the  poetry  of  Medievalism,  midway 
between  the  ancient  and  the  modern,  as  seen  in  Spenser's 
'^  Faerie  Queene"  and  Moore's  '^LaUa  Eookh." 

FURTHER    EXPOSITION 

Convertible  Terms.  If  this  classification,  as  thus  out- 
lined and  explained,  were  differently  stated,  we  would 
have  the  following  schools  or  types  : 

1.  The  Ethical,  or  Subjective  School. 

2.  The  Classical,  or  Esthetic  School. 

3.  The  Eomantic,  or  Objective  School. 

By  the  first  of  these.  The  Ethical,  Poetry  and  Truth 
are  combined  as,  also,  Poetry  and  Faith,  confirming  the 
language  of  Emerson,  that  Poetry  is  ^'  the  Piety  of  the 
Intellect"  and  that  of  Courthope,  ''that  belief  is  the 
parent  of  poetry,  and  that  all  history  shows  that  Poetry 
springs  out  of  religion."  Even  Goethe  tells  us,  "that 
in  Poetry  only  the  great  and  pure  advance  us,"  a  senti- 
ment stoutly  opposed  by  Poe,  who  insists,  that  with  the 
conscience  Poetry  has  only  ' '  collateral  relations, ' '  and 
that  it  is  "heresy  "  to  hold  "that  the  ultimate  object  of 


232  LITEBATUBE 

Poetry  is  Truth."  When  Longinus  tells  us,  that  it  is 
the  office  of  the  poet  ''to  hold  up  high  ideals,"  he  is 
describing  the  legitimate  purpose  of  this  Ethical  School. 

As  intimated,  what  is  sometimes  called,  the  Subjective 
or  Psychological  School,  is  of  this  ethical  order,  dealing 
with  the  inner  self  and  soul  rather  than  with  art  or  man 
or  nature.  Such  poets  as  Shelley  and  Emerson  often 
carry  this  principle  to  the  verge  of  the  mystical  and 
ethereal. 

In  the  second,  or  Classical  School,  the  technique  is 
prominent,  and  correctness  of  taste  must  be  secured, 
whatever  else  is  sacrificed.  What  is  called,  at  times, 
the  Alexandrine  School,  is  here  included,  as  also.  The 
Art  School,  in  which,  as  has  been  said,  "  the  principles 
of  design  predominate  over  nature."  Hence,  such  poets 
as  Pope  and  Keats  and  Gray  and  Matthew  Arnold  and 
Poe  fairly  illustrate  this  second  type,  which  is  the 
strictly  Greek  type. 

In  the  third,  or  Eomantic,  we  have  a  phase  of  the 
Gothic,  representing,  in  modern  verse,  a  revolt  against 
the  formal  school  of  art,  and  finding  its  genuine  expres- 
sion in  Burns  and  Scott  and  Byron  and  the  Lake  Poets. 
It  is  sometimes  called,  the  School  of  Feeling,  or  the 
Natural  School,  and  insists  upon  the  superiority  of  sen- 
timent over  mere  correctness,  and  of  the  imagination! 
over  the  slower  processes  of  the  reason.  It  is  the  Popu-| 
lar  or  Life  School  of  Modern  Verse. 

ACCEPTED  CLASSIFICATION 

With  this  explanatory  reference  to  existing  divisions, 
attention  may  now  be  called  to  the  three  fundamental 
types  or  schools  of  verse  in  which  the  poetic  mind  may 
be  said  fully  to  express  itself,  and  which,  even  in  the 


POETIC  TYPES  233 

sphere  of  prose,  may  be  said  to  be  substantially  valid 
and  exclusive. 

I.  The  Creative,  or  Intellectual. 
II.  The  Impassioned,  or  Emotional. 

m.  The  Critical,  or  Artistic. 

A  word  as  to  each  of  these  types  is  in  place. 

1.  The  Creative,  or  Intellectual.  This  is  what  Mr. 
Arnold  would  call.  The  Poetry  of  Ideas.  The  older 
metaphysicians  would  have  termed  it,  the  product  of 
Original  Suggestion.  It  is  inventive  rather  than  imita- 
tive, indicative  rather  than  exhaustive.  It  evokes  into 
action  that  special  function  of  the  poet  by  which  he  is 
known  as  the  maker,  or  in  First  English  phrase,  the 
Scop,  the  shaper  of  chaotic  material  into  order  and 
beauty.  It  is  here  that  poetic  genius  finds  its  occasion 
and  fullest  expression.  All  the  deepest  and  strongest 
intuitions  of  the  poet' s  nature  come  here  to  their  most 
healthful  exercise.  It  is  needless  to  state  that  such  an 
order  of  mind  is  rare,  and  that  the  strictly  creative  verse 
of  the  world's  literature  maybe  included  in  a  few  vol- 
umes. We  find  it  in  those  few  epics  that  have  received 
the  general  endorsement  of  critics,  in  the  somewhat  more 
numerous  dramatic  masterpieces  of  ancient  and  modern 
times,  while,  here  and  there,  within  the  broader  area  of 
lyric  verse,  occasional  examples  of  its  presence  are  seen. 
The  vast  majority  of  the  poetic  product  of  the  world  has 
no  perceptible  trace  of  this  inventive  element,  and  is  to 
this  extent  undeserving  of  the  name  of  poetry.  Even 
within  the  domain  of  the  epic  and  the  dramatic,  its 
presence  is  but  partial.  Sir  Eichard  Blackmore  has  had 
far  more  followers  in  English  epic  than  Milton  has  had, 
while  Shadwell  is  not  the  only  English  Laureate  who  has 
written  inferior  dramas.     There  is  poetry  and  there  is 


234  LITERATURE 

poetry,  and,  the  more  one  reads  of  the  multiplied  effusions 
of  modern  versifiers,  the  more  he  is  convinced  of  the  fact 
that  the  writing  of  ''nonsense -verses"  is  not  confined  to 
the  classrooms  of  English  schools.  Poetry  is  one  thing, 
Poesy  is  another. 

The  poet  produces.  The  poetaster  reproduces.  In 
that  long  list  of  Victorian  and  American  Poets  to  which 
Mr.  Stedman  calls  our  attention,  how  few  are  they  to 
whom  the  ''  vision  and  faculty  divine"  have  been  really 
given  !  Mr.  Arnold  is  right  in  asserting  ' '  that  a  free 
creative  activity  is  the  highest  function  of  man."  It  is, 
also,  the  highest  function  of  the  author  and  the  poet, 
and  is  as  infrequent  as  it  is  exalted. 

II.   The  Impassioned,  or  Emotional.    If  we  carefully  an- 
alyze the  constituent  elements  of  the  poetic  nature  and 
function,  we  come,  first  of  all,  upon  this  emotive  prin- 
ciple.    It  is  here  that  we  see  poetry  to  be  preeminently! 
the  language  of  feeling,  the  most  direct  interpreter  of  I 
the  soul  of  man — his  hopes  and  fears,  his  loves  and  hates,  i 
his  joys  and  sorrows.     So  characteristic  is  this  feature} 
that,  in  the  domain  of  the  creative  as  the  specific  intel- 
lectual form,    sentiment  and    passion    appear    in  pro- 
nounced degree,  as  in  the  tragic  side  of  dramatic  verse 
and  in  the  most  majestic  reaches  of  the  epic.     It  is  no- 
ticeable, moreover,  that  that  distinctively  spiritual  ele- 
ment which  is  germane  to  the  very  essence  of  poetry  is 
of  this  impassioned  character.     It  is  simply  the  expres- 
sion of  the  heart  in  its  religious  life,  the  outgoing  of  the 
finite  toward  the  infinite  in  devout    aspirations    and 
aflfection.     Hence,   the  excellence  and  influence  of  in- 
spired and  sacred  song,  on  its  purely  literary  side.     As 
uttering  in  fervid  strain  the  profoundest  feelings  of  hu- 
manity, it  finds  a  quick  response  in  the  moral  sympa- 


POETIC  TYPE8  235 

thies  of  the  race.  The  theory  of  the  older  peoples  that 
all  poetry  was  divine  in  origin  and  aim  emphasized  this 
emotive  element  above  all  others  and  allied  the  minstrel 
to  the  prophet  and  the  priest. 

It  is  in  the  light  of  snch  facts  as  these  that  lyric  poetry 
has  been  assigned  by  many  to  the  highest  place  among 
poetic  forms.  Historically  viewed,  there  is  some  ground 
for  this  opinion.  There  is,  probably,  more  Lyric  Verse 
in  its  various  forms  of  Odes,  Elegies,  Sonnets,  and  Pas- 
torals, than  there  is  of  any  other  representative  order. 
The  shorter  Lyrics  of  Milton  are,  in  their  place,  fully  as 
important  as  are  his  epics,  in  theirs,  while  it  is  still  an 
open  question  whether  such  a  standard  Lyrist  as  Burns 
does  not  evince  poetic  genius  as  unmistakably  as  any 
historic  English  poet.  This  much,  at  least,  is  true,  that 
the  absence  of  genuine  passion  is  fatal  to  the  highest  ex- 
amples of  poetic  art,  nor  can  such  an  element  be  too 
pronounced  and  pervasive  so  long  as  it  is  under  the  con- 
trol of  a  well-disciplined  mind  and  taste.  The  poetry  of 
the  Eestoration  was  what  it  was  because  passion  was 
freed  from  rational  control.  The  poetry  of  Elizabethan 
and  of  later  Georgian  days  was  also  what  it  was  because 
poetic  feeling  was  never  stronger  and  purer  and  never 
more  clearly  allied  to  mental  and  ethical  vigor. 

HI.  The  Critical  J  or  Artistic.  One  of  the  more  frequent 
terms  by  which  this  type  of  poetic  expression  is  desig- 
nated is,  the  didactic,  referring  to  all  that  order  of  verse 
in  which  instruction  rather  than  esthetic  pleasure  is  the 
final  end.  The  word,  critical,  however,  is,  at  present, 
the  prevailing  one.  It  is  this  special  type  that  Mr.  Ar- 
nold has  in  mind  when  he  asserts  that  the  main  business 
of  the  poet  is  'Hhe  criticism  of  life,"  and  that  Goethe 
ranks  above  Byron,  not  so  much  because  of  difference  in 


236  LITEBATTJBE 

productive  power  as  in  the  power  of  tlie  critical  discrim- 
ination of  men  and  things.  As  far  as  English  Literature 
is  concerned,  the  representative  era  of  this  school  of 
poetry  is  the  Augustan  age  of  Queen  Anne  and  George 
I.,  while,  in  the  last  two  decades  of  the  Victorian  reign, 
those  days  of  strictly  conventional  verse  are  more  or  less 
reproduced.  In  reference  to  this  poetic  form  it  may  be 
stated,  that  it  unquestionably  has  place  among  character- 
istic types.  It  is  thus  that  Pope  emphasized  the  external 
finish  of  verse.  It  is  thus  that  Keats  and  Gray  are 
quoted  as  classical  poets  rather  than  romantic  or  emo- 
tional. The  poetic  workmanship  is  made  prominent. 
They  are  accepted  exponents  of  literary  art  or  technique, 
whereby  the  verbal  execution  of  the  poem  takes  prece- 
dence of  creative  genius  and  emotive  energy.  Poetry  \ 
and  Architecture  as  Fine  Arts  are  nowhere  so  closely  \ 
related  as  in  the  pages  of  these  English  verse-builders.  | 
This  critical  poetry,  however,  is  the  least  important  of 
the  three  great  divisions  mentioned.  Mr.  Gosse,  in  his 
discussion  of  our  poetry  from  ''Shakespeare  to  Pope," 
has  called  special  attention  to  this  classical  school,  and 
has  attempted  to  exalt  its  principles  and  exponents  to  a 
position  of  undeserved  respect.  We  are  not  yet  quite 
prepared  to  bow  the  knee  in  such  adulation  before  the 
school  of  Waller  and  Carew.  ''In  Literature  as  in 
Architecture,"  says  Mr.  Stedman,  "construction  must 
be  decorated,  not  decoration,  constructed.  Invention 
must  precede  them  both — so  that,  if  imagination  be 
clouded  and  the  glow  of  passion  unfelt,  it  is  worthless 
jugglery  to  compose  at  all.  Poetry  is  a  spirit  taking 
form."  Here  we  have  the  logical  order, — the  creative, 
the  impassioned,  the  critical.  First,  the  subject-matter; 
then,  the  Spirit ;  then,  the  Structure.     Any  radical  re- 


POETIC  TYPES  237 

versal  or  modification  of  this  literary  sequence  of  poetic 
types  always  leads  to  poetic  decline.  No  poetic  produc- 
tion can  be  rightly  called  standard  in  which  there  is  the 
noticeable  absence  of  original  ability,  emotional  fervor 
and  structural  symmetry,  nor  can  any  such  production 
be  regarded  as  a  model  in  which  the  relative  position  of 
these  separate  types  is  out  of  the  order  specified.  The 
first  essential,  even  in  poetry,  is  poetic  genius  or  intel- 
lectuality, and  the  next  is  poetic  stimulus,  and,  tho  no 
poetry  can  exist  apart  from  that  external  mechanism 
called  versification,  this  formal  arrangement  must  ever 
be  held  subordinate  to  sense  and  spirit.  While  the  poetic 
drift  in  Modern  England  is  clearly  toward  the  structural 
and  technical,  and,  thus,  clearly  on  the  decline,  the  most 
hopeful  outlook  in  American  verse  is  seen  in  the  fact  that 
our  younger  bards,  in  loyal  deference  to  Bryant  and 
Whittier  and  the  older  school,  are  seeking  to  produce  an 
order  of  poetry  marked,  above  all,  for  what  may  be 
called — its  intellectual  fervor.  It  is  evidently  under  the 
inspiration  of  such  an  outlook  as  this  that  Mr.  Stedman 
has  written  his  ''American  Poets." 

PLACE  OF  IMAGINATION  IN  EACH  TYPE 

The  special  relation  of  the  Imagination  to  each  of 
these  cardinal  divisions  is  clearly  seen.  In  the  first,  the 
creative,  the  Imagination  is  of  the  Philosophic  or  Mental 
order.  It  is  the  poet's  eye  in  its  widest  outlook  and 
function,  "The  Vision  and  Faculty  Divine,"  according 
to  Emerson,  "A  second  sight." 

In  the  second,  the  Impassioned,  the  Imagination  is  of 
the  Excitive  order,  stirring  and  firing  the  soul  of  the 
poet  to  its  profoundest  depths. 

In  the  third,  the  Critical,  the  Imagination  is  of  the 


238  LITERATURE 

Poeti  c  order,  proper,  evincing  itself  in  its  sense  of  form, 
in  its  shaping  and  constructive  and  plastic  work. 

Thus  it  appears,  that,  whatever  the  poetic  type  may 
be,  the  Imagination  is  present  and  active  as  an  essential 
element,  while  as  in  the  highest  products  of  verse,  all  of 
the  three  great  poetic  types  appear  fused  into  one,  so,  by 
a  similar  process  of  fusion,  all  of  the  different  functions 
of  the  Imagination  appear  as  a  unit  and  the  result  is 
correspondingly  unique. 

TESTS    OF    THE    CORRECTNESS   OP   THIS    CLASSIFICATION 

Seen — 

1.  In  the  accepted  Definitions  of  Foetry.  Poetry  is  de- 
fined in  terms  of  each  of  these  types,  while  the  complete 
definition  involves  the  three.  For  example,  The  Crea- 
tive type  is  emphasized  by  Arnold,  as  he  says — '^Poetry 
is  at  bottom  the  application  of  ideas  to  life,"  or,  by 
De vey,  as  he  says,  '  '■  A  great  poet  must  be  a  philosopher. ' ' 
The  Impassioned  is  equally  emphasized  by  Poe,  in  the 
declaration, — ''A  poem  deserves  its  title  only  as  it  ex- 
cites by  elevating  the  soul.  A  long  poem  is  therefore  a 
contradiction  in  terms. ' ' 

The  Artistic  is  equally  emphasized  by  Swinburne,  as 
he  says — "The  two  primary  qualities  of  Poetry  are 
Imagination  and  Harmony ' '  and  by  Poe,  when  he  speaks 
of  Poetry  as  ''the  rhythmical  creation  of  Beauty." 

So  we  find  these  three  types  beautifully  combined  in 
Courthope's  comprehensive  definition — ''Poetry  is  the 
art  of  producing  pleasure  by  the  just  expression  of 
imaginative  thought  and  feeling  in  metrical  language." 

2.  In  the  accepted  Specific  Kinds  of  Poetry,  epic,  etc. 
In   the   Epic,   the   creative  type  is  prominent;    in  the 


POETIC  TYPES  239 

Dramatic,  the  Creative,  in  conjunction  with  the  Impas- 
sioned, especially  visible  in  Tragedy;  in  the  Lyric  and 
Descriptive,  the  Impassioned  is  supreme,  while  the 
Didactic,  involves  the  critical  type  as  conspicuous. 
Poetry  itself,  in  whatever  form,  is  essentially  esthetic. 

In  such  poems  as  Tennyson's  '' Idylls  of  the  King" 
and  '^In  Memoriam,"  where  each  kind  of  verse  is,  to 
an  extent,  illustrated,  all  the  varied  poetic  types — crea- 
tive, etc. — appear  in  union. 

3.  In  the  accepted  Purposes  of  Poetry.  If  the  aim  is  to 
illuminate  and  enlarge  the  mental  horizon,  the  creative 
type  is  in  order. 

If  to  stimulate  and  move,  the  impassioned  is  in  order. 

If  to  please  and  charm,  the  artistic  is  prominent. 

Hence,  when  Mr.  Arnold  says,  that  ' '  the  grand  power 
of  Poetry  is  its  interpretative  power,"  he  is  referring  to 
its  creative  function,  and  it  is  to  this  that  Emerson  re- 
fers, as  he  says — '' Whatever  is  best  in  literature  is  the 
af&rming,  prophesying,  spermatic  words  of  men-making 
poets. ' ' 

When,  on  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Dowden  speaks  to  us 
of  the  '  '■  Mind  and  Art ' '  of  Shakespeare,  he  is  insisting 
on  the  union,  in  the  poet  and  the  poetry,  of  the  creative 
and  the  critical  purpose,  while  the  modern  school  of 
culture,  so  called,  magnifies  this  artistic  element  above 
all  else  as  the  final  purpose  of  verse.  When,  still  again, 
we  read,  'Hhat  the  test  of  poetry  is  the  extent  and  qual- 
ity of  the  pleasure  it  produces ' '  we  are  in  the  sphere  of 
the  impassioned.  Here,  as  before,  however,  all  great 
poems  may  be  said  to  involve,  in  one  way  or  another, 
the  essential  unification  of  these  three  varied  purposes — 
meoUl,  emotional  and  artistic. 


240  LITEBATUBE 

'Tis  so  in  Homer  and  Vergil ;  Fenelon  and  Eacine  ; 
in  Goethe  and  Schiller;  in  Shakespeare  and  Chaucer. 
Such  poems  as  ' ' Telemachus, "  ^'L'Athalie,"  ''Maria 
Stuart,"  and  the  ''Canterbury  Tales,"  express  in  con- 
crete form  such  a  fusion  of  varied  purposes  in  one  all- 
controlling,  comprehensive  purpose — viz.,  the  expres- 
sion of  truth  to  secure  the  best  results. 

4.  In  the  Accepted  Sources  of  Poetry.  These  sources 
may  be  said  to  be  two,  the  Internal  and  External.  The 
first  of  these  involves  what  is  called.  Genius,  whether 
referring  to  that  element  which  is  distinctively  super- 
natural, or  that  which  is  involved  in  the  natural  endow- 
ment or  personality  of  the  poet.  It  is  that  inbreathing 
which  takes  the  form  of  inspiration  in  song.  It  is  that 
poetic  impulse,  insight  or  instinct,  whatever  we  may  call 
it,  without  which  no  high  result  can  be  reached  in  poetic 
product.  It  is  what  Whipple  calls,  "a  certain  vital 
force,  a  spiritual  power"  and  that  to  which  Emerson 
refers  when  he  tells  us,  that  the  poet  must  ' '  learn  in  the 
secret  augury ;  that  the  inexorable  rule  in  the  Muse's 
Court  is  either  inspiration  or  silence. ' ' 

Hence,  it  is  clear  that  this  entire  province  of  Genius 
as  a  source  of  poetic  power  is  covered  by  what  we  have 
called,  The  Creative  and  Impassioned  Types.  It  in- 
volves what  the  metaphysician  would  term,  "original 
suggestion,"  in  the  expression  of  poetic  sentiment;  the 
happy  union  of  the  natural  and  supernatural, — the  actual 
and  the  probable  and  possible,  so  as  to  insure  the  most 
pronounced  effect.  Poetic  Genius  is  essentially  creative 
and  emotional. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  note  the  External  Sources  of 
Poetry,  we  pass  at  once  from  the  region  of  Genius  or 


POETIC  TYPES  241 

natural  endowment  to  that  of  cultivated  or  induced 
poetic  power, — to  the  science  and  the  art  of  verse,  to  a 
sphere  in  which  there  are  applied  those  principles  of 
poetic  production  which  were  formally  established  by 
Horace  and  Pope  and  Dryden  and  Boileau,  and  which 
involve  the  idea  that  Poetry  is,  to  some  extent,  at  least, 
the  proper  subject  of  education,  by  which  the  absence  or 
modified  presence  of  genius  may  be  partially  compen- 
sated. 

Here,  therefore,  we  come  into  the  region  of  the  Critical 
or  the  Artistic  Type  of  Verse,  into  the  region  of  the  cor- 
rect and  conventional  rather  than  that  of  the  natural, 
where  the  esthetic  is  prominent  over  the  creative  and 
impassioned,  and  culture  and  good  taste  must,  at  all 
hazards,  be  secured. 

Here,  again,  however,  as  in  all  masterful  verse,  the 
three  primary  types  are  seen  to  combine  in  organic  unity 
of  effect,  so,  also,  are  these  two  sources  of  verse  seen  to 
combine  their  respective  excellencies  and  we  note  the 
fusion,  in  the  same  poem,  of  Genius  and  Art ;  of  Inspi- 
ration and  Execution  ;  of  the  Vision  and  the  faculty  of 
song. 

In  Milton's  "Comus,"  or  in  Mrs.  Browning's  ''Drama 
of  Exile,"  or  in  Bryant's  ' '  Thanatopsis, "  or  in  Long- 
fellow's ''Evangeline,"  no  line  can  be  drawn  between 
the  internal  and  external,  between  poetic  instinct  and 
poetic  expression. 

5.  In  the  Accepted  Affinities  or  Relations  of  Poetry.  If 
we  speak  of  Poetry  as  related  to  Prose,  we  have  to  do, 
at  once,  with  the  Intellectual  or  Impassioned  Types  of 
Verse,  dependent  on  the  special  form  of  the  prose,  as 
Historical,  Philosophical,  Forensic  and  Descriptive. 


242  LITEEATUBE 

If  Poetry  is  studied  in  its  relation  to  the  otlier  Fine 
Arts — to  Music  and  Painting  and  Architecture — we  have, 
at  once,  to  do  with  the  Esthetic  Type  of  Verse,  while  the 
highest  type  of  what  is  known  as  Poetical  Prose,  as  in 
Hawthorne,  may  evince  the  effective  combination  of  the 
intellectual,  impassioned  and  esthetic. 

From  these  several  tests,  therefore,  that  have  been  ap- 
plied it  is  evident  that  the  philosophical  and  literary 
correctness  of  the  three  primary  types  as  stated  have 
been  fully  confirmed — their  correctness  as  to  number  and 
as  to  order  of  statement  and  poetic  value.  The  Creative, 
Impassioned  and  Artistic — Subject-Matter,  Spirit  and 
Structure ;  Genius,  Impulse  and  Execution,  each  essen- 
tial in  its  place  and  resulting,  when  combined,  in  the 
finest  and  fullest  product  of  poetic  power. 

SUGGESTIONS 

(a)  Such  a  classification  of  Poetic  Types  is  sugges- 
tively illustrated  as  an  exhaustive  one,  if  applied  within 
the  region  of  our  Vernacular  Verse.  All  English  poets 
of  national  reputation  may  here  be  safely  and  scientific- 
ally placed,  the  precise  place  of  poets  of  the  lower  orders 
being  a  matter  of  comparative  indifference.  We  see,  at 
a  glance,  that  Chaucer  and  Spenser  and  Eobert  Brown- 
ing illustrate  the  creative  type,  as  Burns  and  Byron,  the 
impassioned,  and  as  Pope  and  Keats  and  Matthew  Ar- 
nold illustrate  the  artistic,  while  such  many-sided  minds 
as  Shakespeare  and  Milton  and  Tennyson  express  the 
union  of  all  these  types  in  their  most  effective  forms. 
The  same  principle  is  signally  exemplified  in  other  lit- 
eratures, as  in  Germany,  in  its  three  greatest  names, 
Goethe,  Schiller  and  Lessing,  in  whom  the  three  primary 
types  are  respectively  seen  in  masterful  form  ;  as  in  Italy, 


POETIC  TYPES  243 

in  the  persons  of  Dante  and  Petrarch  and  Boccacio  ;  in 
France,  in  the  poetry  of  Eacine,  La  Fontaine  and  Boi- 
leau,  while,  in  our  American  branch  of  English  Verse, 
the  names  of  Emerson  and  Whittier  and  Longfellow  em- 
body, in  turn,  the  same  great  poetic  types,  it  being  re- 
served for  such  a  comprehensive  mind  as  Lowell  to  ex- 
press in  fitting  relation  and  association  the  substantial 
oneness  of  mind  and  soul  and  art  in  the  open  province 
of  verse. 

(&)  Poetry,  therefore,  wherever  we  find  it  in  its  best 
expression,  is  a  gift  or  a  passion  or  an  art,  or  it  is  these 
three  in  one, — the  trinal  unity  of  power. 

Without  some  one  of  these  types  in  pronounced  ex- 
pression the  poet,  so  called,  is  but  the  merest  versifier, 
while  the  most  brilliant  and  lasting  results  in  Poetry 
can  never  be  obtained  save  by  the  manifest  presence  of 
the  first  of  these  types — the  gift  of  song — a  something 
not  definable  in  terms  and  yet  clearly  discernible  by  the 
sensitive  spirit;  a  something  between  the  lines  of  a  poet's 
pen  more  suggestive  and  inspiring  than  that  which  is 
visible  and  legible.  It  is  this  species  of  verse  that  is 
written  by  poets  who  have  been  born  such;  who  have 
been  so  suffused  with  the  very  genius  and  instinct  of 
song  that  they  have  never  been  able  fully  to  pen  their 
inspiration,  and  who,  in  the  vain  attempt  to  embody  in 
verse  the  sum  total  of  their  innermost  experience,  have 
felt  those  '■  ^  poetic  pains  which  poets  only  know ' '  and 
have  given  us  in  their  best  efforts  but  a  part  and  a  very 
small  part  of  their  full  poetic  life  and  thought.  We 
sometimes  speak  of  the  masterpieces  of  verse — of  the 
world's  greatest  epics  and  dramas  and  lyrics — of  the 
Iliads  and  the  Hamlets  and  In  Memoriams,  as  if  they 
expressed  in  reality  the  fullest  mental  and  emotional 


244  LITERATURE 

range  of  their  respective  authors.  If  the  facts  were  but 
known,  however,  it  would  be  found  that  what  we  have 
in  these  so-called  supreme  efforts  of  the  poets,  is  but  the 
veriest  fragment  of  that  spacious  and  profound  poetic  life 
which  surged  in  the  souls  of  these  sons  of  song.  '^  Para- 
dise Lost,"  as  we  have  it,  is  but  an  outline  sketch  of 
what  Milton  must  have  really  seen  and  felt  when  he  was 
penning  it,  and  what  would  not  the  world  give  to  have 
something  like  an  approximate  disclosure  of  those  poetic 
insights  and  outlooks  which  Shakespeare  had  in  pro- 
ducing his  dramas  but  which  even  he  had  no  language 
or  genius  to  express. 

In  a  word,  in  all  true  Poetry,  there  is  a  something  in- 
finitely greater  than  the  Poetry,  and  that  is  the  poet 
himself  behind  and  below  it — the  thinking,  feeling  and 
living  personality,  permeated  with  the  spirit  of  song; 
seeing  visions  and  hearing  voices  that  he  can  not  tell  to 
others,  and  able  only,  here  and  there,  in  an  interval  of 
inspiration,  to  record,  in  part,  the  experience  through 
which  he  is  passing. 

Hence,  it  is  eminently  natural,  if  in  portions  of  such  a 
poem  as  the  ^'Divine  Comedy,"  or  "Faust,"  or  the 
" Tragedy  of  Hamlet, "  or  "The  Eing  and  The  Book," 
the  reader  is  often  at  a  loss  to  know  the  meaning  of  the 
message,  and  the  critics  are  still  at  variance  as  to  what 
is  written,  for  these  poems  were  produced  in  the  white 
heat  of  poetic  experience,  in  the  stress  and  struggle  of 
conflicting  feelings,  and  their  authors  themselves  wrote 
what  they  wrote  when  fairly  overawed  by  what  they  felt 
and  said. 

Hence,  there  is  in  English  Verse  but  one  Chaucer  and 
one  Shakespeare  and  one  Milton  and  one  Tennyson — one 
Elizabethan  and  one  Victorian  Age  ;  one  "King  Lear" 


FOE  TIC  TYPES  245 

aud  one  '  '■  Idylls  of  the  King, ' '  nor  can  these  poets  and 
poems  be  produced  at  call.  One  in  a  century  is  enough 
to  make  the  century  epochal ;  one  in  a  nation  is  enough 
to  make  the  nation  historic.  There  is  poetry  and  there 
is  poetry.  There  are  lines  containing  so  many  feet  and 
the  feet,  so  many  syllables,  short  and  long,  aud  there  are, 
also,  lines  so  alive  with  the  genius  and  the  soul  and  the 
art  of  song  that  they  carry  within  them  their  own  cre- 
dentials as  of  natural  and  supernatural  origin  and  their 
own  inherent  right  to  live  as  long  as  thought  and  lan- 
guage live. 

Of  such  Poetry,  England  has  her  rightful  share,  and  it 
is  with  such  poetry  and  such  only  that  the  aspiring  stu- 
dent of  English  Letters  has  anything  to  do. 


CHAPTEE  FOUE 
PRIMARY   PROSE  TYPES 

The  Primary  Poetic  Types  of  Literature  have  already 
been  discussed,  the  Creative,  Impassioned  and  Critical, 
illustrated  in  the  more  particular  forms  of  the  Epic, 
Dramatic,  Lyric,  Descriptive  and  Didactic.  We  are 
now  dealing,  and  in  natural,  chronological  order,  with 
the  corresponding  Prose  Types  and  with  those  that  are 
accepted  as  Primary.  We  may  call  them  Primary,  both 
as  to  time  and  character,  appearing  in  the  developing 
history  of  literature  after  a  somewhat  established  order 
of  sequence,  and  appearing,  also,  as  one  or  the  other 
type  when  the  literary  demand  for  the  respective  type  is 
the  strongest.  As  Primary,  they  are  thus  both  natural 
and  historical  types,  strictly  representative,  and,  as  such, 
demanding  the  attention  of  the  student  of  letters.  More- 
over, they  are  called  Types  in  that  they  represent  the 
form  or  mode  in  which  Prose  Literature  most  normally 
and  fully  discloses  itself.  They  are  the  ways  of  Prose 
Expression,  it  being  emphasized,  that  because  they  are 
the  expression  of  the  mind  of  the  author,  they  are  far 
more  than  mere  modes,  and  take  on,  to  some  extent,  the 
subjective  quality  of  the  thought  behind  them.  Thus  it 
is  that  in  literature,  as  in  physical  nature,  a  type,  tho 
mainly  external  and  visible,  a  phenomenon,  is,  also,  in 
part,  a  something  internal,  a  quality  and  characteristic. 
As  to  the  classification  of  these  Types,  various  principles, 
more  or  less  acceptable,  might  be  adopted.  We  might 
view  them  as  the  Poetic  Types  were  viewed.     We  might 

246 


PBIMAEY  PROSE  TYPES  247 

classify  by  Periods,  and  speak  of  Classical  and  Modern 
Prose,  and  of  Elizabethan  and  Augustan  Prose;  by  Eaces 
or  Xations,  and  speak  of  Asiatic  and  European  Prose; 
of  English  and  Gothic  Prose;  by  authors,  and  discuss, 
in  turn,  Goethean  or  Carlylean  Prose;  or  from  the  stand- 
point of  Style,  and  speak  of  Prose  as  Clear,  Cogent  and 
Artistic.  The  principle,  however,  that  will  most  safely 
guide  us  in  classification  is — What  is  the  Final  Purpose 
of  the  prose  author  at  the  time  in  his  literary  work  ? 
On  this  basis,  we  note  several  distinct  types — the  His- 
torical, Descriptive,  Oratorical,  Didactic  and  Periodical, 
each  of  them  having  its  own  distinctive  purpose  and 
province,  and,  yet,  all  of  them  so  interacting  as  to  reveal 
their  common  literary  origin  and  the  poetical  unity  of 
all  diversities  of  form.  We  shall  briefly  discuss  them  in 
the  order  of  their  natural  evolution. 

1.  The  Historical  Type.  This  is  often  and  properly 
called,  ISTarrative  Prose,  where  the  element  of  time,  in 
which  events  are  supposed  necessarily  to  occur,  is  the 
prominent  one.  The  object  of  the  author  is  to  present 
the  subject  to  the  attention  of  the  reader  just  as  it  un- 
folds itself  in  the  successive  stages  of  its  historic  develop- 
ment. It  is  the  simplest  and  earliest  form  of  prose,  as 
the  song  is  that  of  poetry,  and  commends  itself  to  all 
classes  and  conditions,  to  all  ages  and  phases.  In  what 
is  called.  The  Metrical  Chronicle,  asLayamon's  "Brut," 
and  Eobert  of  Gloucester's  ''Chronicle,"  we  have  the 
narrative  poet  and  prose-writer  in  one  and  the  same 
literary  personality. 

Historical  Methods  may  be  reduced  to  two — the  Chron- 
ological or  strictly  Narrative  Method,  and  The  Logical  or 
Eeflective.     Of  these,  the  first  is  the  earlier  and  the  sim- 


248  LITEBATUBE 

pier,  the  most  natural  way  in  which,  a  story  may  be  told 
or  events  made  known.  It  is  a  citation  or  re- citation 
of  facts  as  they  stand,  with  just  enough  of  enlargement 
to  give  them  literary  form  and  effect,  and,  yet,  not  enough 
to  conceal  the  presence  and  importance  of  the  facts  as 
such.  Such  an  historian  escapes  the  error  of  the  mere 
annalist  or  chronicler,  who  confines  himself  to  outlines, 
while,  yet,  stopping  this  side  the  province  of  the  reflect- 
ive and  logical.  Historians,  such  as  Hume  and  Knight, 
who  follow  the  course  of  the  centuries  from  the  opening 
of  the  Christian  Era  down,  are  examples  in  point  of  this 
earlier  method.  Descriptive  History,  so  called,  is  of 
this  simpler  order.  The  Logical  Method  is  later,  more 
complex  and  difficult,  purposely  subordinating  facts  to 
principles  ;  all  details  and  mere  data,  to  generalization. 
Tho  the  author  here  as  an  historian  is  a  narrator,  he  is 
something  more,  as  he  is  seen  to  magnify  causes  and  ef- 
fects, laws  and  principles.  Not  content  with  a  mere 
record  of  facts,  he  reasons  and  reflects  upon  them,  follows 
them  out  to  their  legitimate  conclusions.  It  is  here  that 
Fronde  and  Grote  differ  from  Hume  and  Macaulay. 
Hence,  we  speak  correctly  of  the  philosophy  of  history 
and  of  i)hilosophical  histories.  As  to  the  Province  of 
Historical  Prose,  there  are  two  divisions  which  it  in- 
cludes— Biography,  and  History  proper — Civil  and  Ec- 
clesiastical. Biography  is  personal  history,  a  record  of 
individual  life  as  it  gradually  unfolds  from  youth  to  age, 
finding  its  limit  where  the  personal  assumes  national  or 
social  form.  In  Autobiography,  this  personal  feature  is 
even  more  pronounced,  as  the  author  becomes  the  sub- 
ject of  his  own  narrative.  The  rapid  increase  of  biog- 
raphy is  sufficient  proof  of  the  essential  validity  of  this 
form,  as  seen  in  such  strictly  literary  biography  as  Field's 


FBIMAEY  PBOSE  TYPES  249 

'^Yesterday  with  Authors  " ;  in  such  a  union  of  the  civic 
and  literary  as  Masson's  "Life  and  Times  of  Milton"; 
in  such  strictly  civic  narratives  as  Strickland's  ''Queens 
of  England,"  and  in  the  ''Lives  of  the  Nations,"  as  in 
The  American  Commonwealth  Series.  One  of  the  domi- 
nant literary  features  of  the  time  is  the  increasing  pro- 
duction of  these  Biographical  Serials.  In  History 
Proper,  however,  we  have  the  most  pronounced  example 
of  Narrative  Prose,  either  on  its  civic  or  literary  side. 
Indeed,  the  civic  or  political  element  is  the  characteristic 
one,  as  in  Hallam  and  Green,  Guizot  and  Buckle.  As 
Webster  gives  it.  History  is  ' '  An  account  of  facts,  par- 
ticularly of  facts  respecting  nations  and  states.  It  is  a 
record  of  the  founding  and  growth  of  nations."  This 
apart,  however,  its  province  is  a  comprehensive  one, 
illustrated  in  every  department  open  to  the  work  of  the 
student  as  an  author.  Thus  we  have  Literary  History, 
by  Hallam  and  Wartou  ;  the  History  of  Language,  by 
Marsh  and  Whitney  ;  of  Philosophy,  by  Lewes  and  Ueber- 
weg  ;  of  the  Church,  by  Neander  and  Mosheim  ;  of  Poli- 
tics, by  Freeman  and  Von  Hoist.  The  field,  indeed,  is 
limited  only  by  the  accepted  classification  of  the  Human 
Sciences,  Arts  and  Philosophies.  The  historian  as  a  re- 
corder and  narrator  has  access  to  all  collected  data,  and 
it  is  his  duty  and  opportunity  to  present  them  in  accept- 
able, readable  form.  As  to  the  Literary  Qualities  espe- 
cially exemplified  and  needed  in  historical  authorship, 
it  is  evident  that  Unity,  Sequence,  Simplicity,  Dignity, 
Delineative  Skill,  Clearness  and  Accuracy  are  essential. 
The  central  facts  must  be  so  apprehended  that  they  must 
be  presented  in  their  temporal  and  logical  order,  in  a 
style  devoid  of  artifice,  with  a  good  degree  of  graphic 
boldness,  with  an  intelligibility  that  can  not  be  ques- 


250  LITERATURE 

tioned,  with  a  due  regard  to  the  serious  issues  involved, 
and  with  a  devoted  fidelity  to  the  truth.  Whatever  else 
may  or  may  not  be  present,  these  features  must  be,  and 
to  the  degree  in  which  they  are  present  will  the  record 
fulfill  all  accepted  conditions  and  commend  itself  both  to 
critical  and  popular  esteem.  It  is  because  of  these  car- 
dinal characteristics  that  History  has  ever  ranked  among 
the  most  interesting  and  profitable  forms  of  literature, 
and  must  ever  find  its  justification  among  all  ambitious 
students  of  English  Style.  Literary  students  have  a 
right  to  expect  at  the  hands  of  the  historian  not  only  a 
truthful  record  of  facts  and  events,  but  a  record  so  pre- 
sented as  to  take  its  place  as  a  specimen  of  standard  prosq 
authorship. 


J 


2.  Descriptive  Prose.  This  has  to  do  primarily  wit 
space  and  locality  rather  than  with  time  5  with  objecti 
rather  than  events ;  with  portraiture  rather  than  wit 
narrative,  and  fulfills  its  final  purpose  when  it  places  th 
reader  at  the  author' s  point  of  view,  and  reveals  to  hi 
through  the  medium  of  language  just  what  he  sees  an^ 
how  he  sees  it.  It  is  a  kind  of  verbal  photography  in 
the  sphere  of  letters,  a  real  pictorial  art  in  its  processes, 
ideals  and  results.  It  is  thus  an  imaginative  order  of 
prose,  re-presentative  as  well  as  presentative,  dealing 
with  symbols  more  than  with  facts,  if  so  be  ideas  and 
images  may  be  as  veritably  present  and  vivid,  as  if  they 
had  substantial  being  and  function.  Hence,  as  in  Nar- 
rative Prose,  we  find  the  simple  and  the  abstract  form, 
the  description  of  a  visible  object  or  scene  in  nature,  as 
Wallace's  description  of  Vesuvius,  and  Victor  Hugo's 
description  of  The  Battle  of  Waterloo,  or  that  of  an  in- 
visible object  or  scene,  as  illustrated  in   Hawthorne, 


PRIMARY  FR08E  TYFE8  251 

Euskin  and  Irving.  Just  to  the  degree  in  which  the 
author  rises  from  the  plane  of  the  sensible  and  tangible 
to  that  of  the  sujDersensible  and  symbolic,  does  descrip- 
tion involve  a  definite  intellectual  function  and  entitle 
its  successful  exponents  to  the  rank  of  masters.  It  is 
thus  that  the  description  of  a  battle  in  process  before  the 
eye  of  the  observer  is  a  less  difficult  literary  effort  than 
that  of  the  courage  of  the  soldiery  or  the  magnitude  of 
the  issues  involved  in  the  struggle.  Thus,  the  descrip- 
tion of  European  Morals  by  Leckey  or  that  of  Divine 
Eetribution  by  Edwards  marks  a  far  higher  order  of  de- 
lineative  power  than  the  representation  of  The  Plague 
at  Athens  by  Thucydides  or  of  the  Euins  of  Pompeii  by 
Bulwer.  It  is  mainly  by  reason  of  this  distinctive 
imaginative  element  that  Descriptive  Prose  finds  so  large 
a  place  in  the  province  of  Fiction — what  is  called,  The 
Descriptive  Xovel,  the  Novel  of  Life  and  Manners,  being 
its  most  pronounced  embodiment,  as  in  Dickens,  Thack- 
eray, Eeade  and  Bulwer.  The  department  of  Poetic 
Prose  evinces  it,  as  does  Poetry  itself  in  lyric  and  drama 
and  in  such  naturalistic  verse  as  Thomson's  '^Seasons," 
and  such  indoor  domestic  verse  as  we  find  in  Whittier. 
In  such  sketches  of  travel  as  those  given  us  by  Irving 
and  Hawthorne  and  Bayard  Taylor,  this  feature  is  con- 
spicuous. If  it  be  asked  what  the  Essential  Qualities  of 
this  order  of  prose  are,  there  are  two  of  prominence — 
Vividness  and  Vigor,  a  lifelike  and  forceful  representa- 
tion of  the  object  or  scene  depicted.  Descriptive  Prose 
is  nothing  if  not  vivid  and  vital,  and  hence  it  is  that 
when  properly  executed  by  a  master  hand  there  is  no 
order  of  prose  more  deservedly  current  and  none  more 
promising  as  to  literary  value  and  permanence.  When, 
moreover,  Narrative  and  Descriptive  Prose  meet  and 


252  LITER  A  T  UBE 

fuse  in  one  organic  literary  product,  as  in  the  clioicest 
History  and  Fiction,  the  result  is  correspondingly  satis- 
factory, while  each  is  seen  in  its  best  expression. 

3.  The  Oratorical  Type.  "We  are  now  dealing  wholly 
with  written  prose  and,  hence,  with  the  term,  Oratorical, 
as  distinct  from  Oral  Prose  ;  with  the  work  of  the  author 
as  such  in  his  study  and  not  with  the  orator  on  the  plat- 
form in  open  assembly ;  with  the  oration  as  a  written 
product  for  the  examination  of  the  critic  or  general 
reader.  Thus  understood,  however,  it  is  to  be  noted 
that  the  word,  oratorical,  has  a  force  and  meaning  of  its 
own  by  reason  of  its  close  connection  with  that  which  is. 
oral.  It  is  that  type  of  prose  which,  because  it  is  orator- 
ical, is  possessed  of  elements  making  it  adajpted  to  oral 
delivery,  a  kind  of  middle  form  between  the  oral  and  the 
written.  It  is  sometimes  called.  Impassioned  Prose,  as 
distinct  from  the  dispassionate  type  of  the  narrative  and 
descriptive,  its  primary  object  being  to  awaken  or  allay 
feeling.  It  is  the  most  incitive  and  excitive  species  of 
Prose,  aiming  at  inspiration  and  impulse  rather  than  in- 
struction or  pleasure.  It  is  known,  also,  as  Persuasive! 
Prose,  contemplating  the  influencing  of  the  Will  and  thai 
Motives  and  the  Conscience  toward  some  objective  act 
or  line  of  action,  involving  the  personality  alike  of 
author  and  reader,  as  is  true  of  no  other  form.  As  Bacon 
states  it — ^'It  is  the  application  of  the  reason  and  imag- 
ination for  the  better  moving  of  the  will"  coming  to  its 
highest  exercise  when  the  oratorical  passes  over  into  the 
oral  and  the  author  becomes  the  orator  in  living  presence 
before  the  people  on  some  vital  issue.  There  are  three 
Forms  of  such  prose  that  are  especially  manifest.  The 
Forensic,  the  Judicial  and  the  Popular.     By  the  first  is 


FBIMABY  FBOSE  TYPES  253 

meant  a  written  literary  product  that  is  parliamentary 
or  congressional  in  character,  prepared  -svith  the  rostrum 
in  full  view,  the  civic  or  political  prose  of  modern  states 
and  peoples.  Hence,  its  themes  are  practical  and  pend- 
ing, dealing  with  great  national  issues  on  which  the  des- 
tinies of  nations  may  depend.  It  is  a  kind  of  legislative 
prose,  expounding  great  constitutional  principles  or 
enforcing  their  acceptance  and  apj)lication.  The  written 
orations  of  Cicero,  and  Mirabeau,  of  Burke  and  Adams, 
before  they  were  pronounced  in  open  assembly,  are  of 
this  specific  order,  and  clearly  have  a  place  within  the 
province  of  literary  prose.  Judicial  or  Argumentative 
Prose,  tho  in  the  line  of  logical  exposition,  lying  outside 
the  area  of  oratorical  prose  as  impassioned,  lies  within 
that  area  in  the  line  of  persuasive  cogency  and  appeal. 
The  great  written  debates  of  European  history  afford  the 
best  examples  of  this  juristic  writing.  By  it,  the  author 
becomes  the  impassioned  pleader  for  general  j  ustice  and 
the  rights  of  man,  seeks  to  defend  the  injured  and  speed 
the  cause  of  truth  and  law.  There  is,  indeed,  no  form 
of  prose  where  the  personal  factor  may  more  vitally  enter 
and  genuine  emotion  rise  to  higher  levels,  for  here  the 
author  becomes  an  unselfish  advocate  of  the  interests  of 
others  and  the  end  that  he  seeks  is  the  maintenance  of 
law. 

Popular  Prose  is  a  form  in  which  the  author  is  neither 
the  statesman  nor  jurist,  but  rather  a  man  among  men, 
a  representative  of  the  public  good.  The  Senate  and 
the  Bar  are  now  less  in  view  than  the  hustings  from 
which  the  writer  studies  the  needs  and  ambitions  of  the 
people  at  large.  Public  Opinion  is  now  in  process  of 
formation  and  expression,  and  the  oratorical  author  is 
seeking  to  shape  and  control  it.     This  is  the  form  most 


254  LITEBATUBE 

germane  to  Free  Governments,  the  most  liberal  and 
democratic  type.  It  is,  thus,  an  eminently  English  and 
American  form,  signally  illustrated,  also,  in  the  stirring 
days  of  the  Greek  Eepublic,  as  in  all  those  crises  of  Con- 
tinental Politics  when  the  people  protested  against  any 
invasion  of  their  prerogatives  and  insisted  on  the  claims 
of  the  masses  against  the  classes.  As  to  this  kind  of 
Prose,  two  suggestions  may  be  noted. 

(a)  It  is  the  least  artistic  of  all  the  types,  in  that  it 
borders  so  closely  on  the  conditions  of  oratory  itself, 
gaining,  however,  in  power  and  pointedness  where  it 
loses  in  grace  and  esthetic  finish,  and  starting  a  question 
ill  to  solve,  whether  it  does  not  meet  thereby  fully  as 
successfully  as  other  forms  the  final  purpose  of  the 
author. 

(h)  Hence,  a  second  Inference,  that  Impressiveness  is 
its  dominant  quality.  At  this  point,  it  has  no  superior 
or  approximate  rival.  It  is  alike  affective  and  effective, 
primarily  designed  to  meet  an  immediate  issue  and  in- 
cite to  immediate  action.  From  first  to  last,  it  is  impres- 
sive, so  much  so  that  as  we  read  it  and  come  under  the 
X)ower  of  it,  we  find  ourselves,  perforce,  ardent  advocates 
of  the  policy  it  proposes.  Our  understandings  and  our 
feelings  are  alike  enlisted  and  we  are  ready  at  call  to 
evince  of  sincerity  by  an  actual  committal  of  ourselves 
to  the  cause  that  is  presented. 

4.  Didactic  Frose.  All  Prose  is,  in  a  sense,  didactic. 
Its  office  as  distinct  from  that  of  Poetry  is  to  teach  and 
explain,  to  show  the  meaning  or  the  truth  of  a  given 
proposition,  or  conversely,  its  obscurity  and  error.  Its 
purpose  is  to  induce  new  views  or  to  modify  or  support 


PEIMABY  PB08E  TYPES  255 

one,  and  rightly  called,  at  times,  Expository  Prose,  thus 
conforming  to  Aristotle' s  statement  ' '  that  the  power  of 
explaining  what  is  inherent  in  the  subject  and  adapted 
to  it  is  the  peculiar  province  of  the  writer."  Hence,  it 
is  the  least  impassioned  and  incitive  of  all  the  forms,  the 
least  oratorical  in  type.  It  relies  on  the  simple  presen- 
tation of  the  truth  to  reach  the  mind  and  effect  its  ends. 
It  has  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the  ornate,  the  imag- 
inative and  poetic,  or  even  with  the  descriptive,  save 
in  so  far  as  this  may  be  used  to  throw  increasing  light  on 
the  subject  in  hand.  It  would  not  be  amiss  to  call  it, 
the  Scientific  Form  of  Prose,  the  scientific  element,  how- 
ever, in  any  technical  expression  of  it,  being  held  so  in 
abeyance  as  to  keep  the  type  well  within  the  province  of 
literature  as  untechnical  and  general.  It  is  an  Educa- 
tional, Academic  order  of  Prose,  both  because  it  mag- 
nifies the  subject-matter  over  the  style  and  seeks  to  pre- 
sent it  in  apprehensible  forms.  All  that  is  involved  in 
clear  and  full  Definition  is  here  included.  It  sets  the 
bounds  to  a  subject;  marks  it  off  from  all  related  topics 
with  which  it  might  be  confounded,  and  thus  it  may  be 
said  to  condition  all  successful  expressions.  It  is  known 
as  Philosophic  Prose,  the  term,  philosophic,  not  being 
used  in  any  speculative  or  scholastic  sense  but  in  its 
wider  meaning  of  that  which  is  intellectual  and  reflective, 
evincing  that  meditative  character  which  is  so  germane 
to  all  mental  activity,  whether  in  literature  or  philosophy. 
As  thus  interpreted.  Philosophic  Prose  is  dispassionate, 
thorough  and  deliberate,  that  species  to  which  Bacon 
referred  when  he  said  that  "Studies  serve  for  ability." 
It  is  studious,  weighty,  stable  and  thoughtful,  reducing 
literary  form  to  the  lowest  terms  and  exalting  the  idea 
to  its  highest  plane.     It  is  the  most  sedate  and  dignified 


256  LITERATURE 

type,  its  Senecan  sobriety  amounting  almost  to  a  moral 
quality  and  corresponding  to  sublimity  in  poetry.  Grav- 
ity supersedes  pleasantry,  and  maturity  of  conception, 
method  and  expression  marks  tlie  type.  It  is  thus  that 
Bacon  wrote  his  '^  Advancement  of  Learning"  ;  Pascal, 
his  '^Thoughts"  ;  Hooker,  his  ^'Polity";  Draper,  his 
"Intellectual  Development  of  Europe";  Schlegel,  his 
"Dramatic  Literature";  Longinus,  his  Treatise  "On 
the  Sublime  ";  Fenelon,  his  "Dialogues  on  Eloquence," 
and  Emerson,  his  "Essays,"  and  thus  have  all  those 
authors  written  who  have  felt  that  they  had  a  high  mes- 
sage to  communicate  to  men  and  must  take  earnest  heed 
that  they  deliver  it  as  it  stands. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  Philosophic  Prose,  tho  mainly 
didactic,  is  to  some  extent,  awakening.  It  is  of  interest 
to  notice  the  various  subordinate  forms  which  it  has  his- 
torically assumed.  Its  close  relation  to  Narrative  Prose 
on  its  higher  plane  is  seen  in  the  Philosophy  of  History, 
as  in  Grote,  Buckle  and  Guizot.  In  such  a  novelist  as 
George  Eliot,  we  see  an  example  of  Philosophic  Descrip- 
tion, the  serious  study  of  character  and  motive  as  repre- 
sented in  "Eomola"  and  "Daniel  Deronda."  In  Les- 
sing.  Saint  Beuve  and  Coleridge,  we  have  Philosophic 
Miscellany  ;  in  Choate  and  Webster,  Juristic  Prose  on 
the  philosophic  side ;  in  Whitney,  the  Philosophy  of 
Language  ;  in  Bacon  and  Bain,  the  Philosophy  of  Style. 
Bentham  has  thus  written  on  Jurisprudence  ;  Kames,  on 
Criticism  ;  Walpole,  on  Government  ;  Alison  and  Burke, 
on  Taste  ;  Clarendon,  on  English  History  ;  John  Foster, 
on  Character;  and  Emerson,  on  Plato,  each  seeking,  in 
his  own  way,  to  reach  the  foundations  of  the  subject  in 
hand  and  to  present  it  in  its  fulness.  Not  the  most  com- 
mon form,  it  is  sufdciently  current  to  keep  literature  well 


PRIMARY  PROSE  TYPES  257 

established  on  safe  foundations  and  successfully  oppose 
all  tendencies  to  the  superficial.  In  fine,  there  is  a  place 
in  Letters  for  Didactic  Prose,  a  Teaching  Type,  discip- 
linary and  corrective,  nor  is  there  any  better  test  of  a 
literary  era  as  high  or  low  than  the  presence  or  absence 
of  this  educational  form.  All  Golden  Ages  have  evinced 
it,  as  ages  of  inferiority  have  been  notable  for  its  absence. 
Light  literature  has  its  place  and  mission,  but  can  not 
possibly  subsist  alone  and  be  contributive  to  the  general 
good.  There  must  be  a  body  of  literature,  a  substratum 
on  which  to  build  and  abide,  nor  is  English  Literature 
second  to  any  in  this  particular  feature.  If  asked — What 
is  the  End  and  Final  Effect  of  this  Order  of  Prose,  we 
would  answer — Mental  Stimulus,  a  quickening  of  all  the 
powers,  the  invigoration  and  enlargement  of  the  mind. 
There  is  such  a  thing  as  Mental  Movement  or  Impulse,  a 
something  much  higher  than  mere  emotional  impulse,  a 
movement  in  the  region  of  the  Faculties  and  all  the  more 
effective  by  reason  of  its  rareness. 

5.  Periodicat  Prose.  In  so  far  as  English  Prose  is  con- 
cerned this  particular  name  has  been  used  to  designate 
this  tyj)e  since  the  days  of  De  Foe  and  the  regularly  ap- 
pearing publications  of  the  time  in  dailies,  weeklies, 
monthlies  and  annuals.  The  term.  Miscellaneous  Prose, 
is  also  used  as  indicative  of  its  character,  as  confined  to 
no  one  province  or  method,  to  no  one  class  of  themes  or 
phase  of  style,  enjoying  within  the  area  of  prose  a  kind 
of  license  as  free  as  that  allowed  in  verse.  Nor  is  it  to 
be  accepted  that  Miscellany,  as  such,  is  an  inferior  form 
of  prose  exx3ression,  or  is  called  Miscellany,  because  it 
defies  classification  and  is  marked  by  no  distinctive 
merit.     On  the  contrary,  there  is  no  domain  of  prose 


258  LITEBATUBE 

that  it  does  not  enter.  It  may  illustrate  in  turn  tlie  high- 
est forms  of  each,  and  if  it  lacks  in  definiteness  of  area 
and  topic,  gains  immensely  in  compass  and  variety  and 
diversity  of  method.  So  wide  is  its  province,  that  we 
may  be  said  to  have  Narrative,  Descriptive,  Oratorical 
and  Didactic  Prose  all  expressed,  when  needed,  in  the 
form  of  Miscellany,  the  author  in  each  case  not  feeling 
bound  to  restrict  himself  to  the  specific  type  in  hand, 
save  in  a  general  way.  Its  special  danger,  therefore,  lies 
in  the  line  of  the  discursive  and  desultory,  assuming,  at 
times,  the  phase  of  the  capricious.  It  is  to  the  lasting 
credit  of  Dr.  Johnson  that,  tho  he  called  two  of  his 
General  Collections  of  Essays,  respectively.  The  Bamhler 
and  The  Idler,  he  held  himself,  in  the  main,  strictly  to 
the  topic  in  hand,  and  was,  at  the  same  time,  versatile 
and  thorough.  It  is  safely  within  the  truth  to  say,  that 
the  best  Miscellaneous  authors  of  English  Letters  are  en- 
titled to  similar  praise,  such  an  essayist  as  Bacon  pre- 
senting a  model  in  this  respect  to  all  succeeding  writers. 
It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  Brevity  is  as  much  a  fea- 
ture of  the  highest  Miscellany  as  is  Variety.  Just  be- 
cause the  Periodical  is  necessarily  limited  in  scope  as 
compared  with  the  book  or  extended  treatise,  the  author 
is  obliged  to  hold  himself  well  in  hand  and  make  a  study 
of  the  art  of  condensation.  So  anxious  have  some  essay- 
ists been  to  keep  within  the  law  of  literary  economy, 
that  they  have  passed  to  the  extreme  of  terseness  and 
given  us  an  order  of  style  so  laconic  as  to  be  epigram- 
matic. Thomas  Carlyle  is  proof  in  point.  Lord  Bacon 
specifically  tells  us  that  what  he  gives  in  his  Miscella- 
neous Essays,  he  gives  ^4n  certain  brief  notes,"  aiming 
as  he  did  toward  such  terseness  that  he  must  compact 
his  thoughts  into  the  restricted  compass  of  the  Apothegm. 


FBIMABY  PROSE  TYPES  259 

Just  here  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  problems  that  the 
Miscellaneous  author  has  to  solve — to  be  brief  and,  yet, 
comprehensive  ;  to  be  interesting  and,  yet,  suggestive ; 
to  secure,  at  the  same  time,  specific  and  general  ends ; 
logical  unity  and  logical  breadth.  The  increasing  de- 
mand for  this  order  of  Prose  is  sufficient  evidence  that  it 
is  a  standard  form  and  that  its  best  exponents  are  suc- 
ceeding in  meeting  its  demands.  Its  attractiveness  as  a 
type,  is,  also,  seen  in  the  fact  that  most  of  the  best  prose 
writers  of  every  standard  literature  have  attempted  and 
accomplished  something  substantial  in  this  direction. 
So  true  is  this  that  a  study  of  the  history  of  European 
Prose  would  involve  the  study  of  European  Miscellany. 
In  such  an  English  Era  as  the  Augustan  it  is  seen  to  be 
the  prevailing  form  so  that  all  other  literary  develop- 
ments must  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of  it.  One  great 
reason  for  its  currency  is,  that  it  is  an  eminently  natural 
form,  "coming  home,"  as  Bacon  states  it,  'Ho  men's 
business  and  bosoms  .  .  .  handling  things  wherein  the 
lives  of  men  are  most  conversant. ' '  Nor  is  it  to  be  forgot- 
ten by  the  English  student  that  the  Periodical  is  essen- 
tially of  English  origin.  The  Tatler  of  1709,  was, 
according  to  Drake,  ''the  first  legitimate  model." 
Preceding  The  Tatler  were  the  Essays  of  Bacon,  in  1597; 
those  of  Temple,  in  1672  ;  of  Collier,  in  1697  ;  and  of 
Cowley.  Especially  noticeable  is  De  Foe's  Bevieio  of 
1704,  several  years  in  advance  of  The  Tatler.  So,  in 
Continental  Europe,  La  Bruyere  and  Montague  and 
others  had  written.  Be  this  as  it  may.  Miscellany  is  a 
characteristic  British  type,  nor  need  we  go  outside  of 
English  Letters  for  the  best  examples  it  has  given  us. 
Of  the  different  Divisions  of  Miscellaneous  Prose  it  may 
be  said  that  Journalism,   Letters,  Essays  and  EeviewG 


260  LITEEATTJBE 

are  tlie  chief,  Travels  and  Tales  being,  also,  assigned  a 
place  therein. 

In  so  far  as  Journalism  is  concerned,  the  reference  is 
to  its  higher  forms  as  seen  in  the  wide  department  of 
magazine  production,  as  distinct  from  the  Daily  !N'ews- 
paper  Press,  and  may  best  be  examined  under  the  cap- 
tion of  Essays  and  Eeviews.  As  to  Letters,  sufBice  it  to 
say,  that  the  reference  is  exclusively  to  the  literary  side 
of  epistolary  writing,  as  seen  in  the  correspondence  of 
Goethe  and  Schiller ;  of  Feuelon  and  Madame  Guyon ; 
of  Carlyle  and  Emerson.  There  is  such  an  admissible 
phrase  as.  Literary  Letters,  as  the  '  '■  Paston  Letters ' '  of 
the  fifteenth  century  ;  or  those  of  "Junius"  in  the  Age 
of  George  the  Third.  Those  of  Swift,  Temple,  Walpole, 
Lamb,  Cowper,  Sara  Coleridge,  Lockhart,  Macaulay, 
Euskin,  Matthew  Arnold,  Lowell  and  Stevenson  are  of 
this  order,  in  which  literature  and  life  often  come  to 
their  best  expression ;  where  all  artifice  and  imitation 
disappear  in  the  presence  of  nature ;  where  soul  reveals 
itself  to  soul,  and,  for  the  time  at  least,  the  author  is  lost 
in  the  man.  By  far  the  most  common  and  typical  ex- 
pression of  Miscellaneous  Prose  is  the  Essay,  whatever 
the  form  may  be — Descriptive  or  Critical.  The  first 
represents  the  lighter,  freer,  more  popular  order.  The 
latter  is  best  seen  in  Literary  Criticism,  as  in  the  columns 
of  the  Ediiiburg  Review  and  similar  organs.  Of  these, 
the  first  is  the  more  normal,  characteristic  and  frequent, 
the  readable  essay  of  Modern  Letters,  just  substantial 
enough  to  be  called  good  literature,  and,  yet,  racy  and 
informal  enough  to  appeal  to  the  average  reading  public. 
It  is,  in  fact,  the  ideal  literary  type,  piesenting  truth 
and  knowledge  in  acceptable  form,  clear,  vital  and  in 
good  taste, — the  great  literary  staple  of  the  readiiig 


PRIMARY  PROSE  TYPES  261 

world.  Of  the  higher  form,  the  Critical,  it  is  enough  to 
say  that  it  occupies  a  field  of  its  own,  tho  comparatively 
a  narrow  one  ;  is  demanded  in  order  that  literary  stand- 
ards may  be  preserved  ;  finds  its  illustration  in  such 
notable  manner  in  Lessing,  Saint  Beuve  and  Lowell,  and 
is  miscellaneous  only  in  the  sense  that  it  deals  with  all 
literary  themes  and  times.  From  this  wide  subject,  as 
thus  discussed,  we  notice  a  few  suggestions  of  interest. 

A.  As  to  the  Relative  Value  of  Prose  Types.  Here  it 
may  be  urged  that  it  is  as  unliterary  as  it  is  useless  to 
draw  close  distinctions  among  these  forms  that  are  all 
Primary.  Each  in  its  place  is  best  at  the  time,  and,  when 
one  is  emphasized,  it  is  understood  to  be  on  the  principle 
of  convenience  and  temporary  conditions.  \\Tiile,  if 
necessary,  all  of  them  could  be  reduced  to  the  Narrative 
and  Descriptive  as  most  fundamental,  no  such  necessity 
exists,  the  author  and  critic  alike  seeking  to  magnify 
their  unity  of  spirit  and  purjjose.  Literature  is  a  com- 
prehensive and  catholic  art. 

B.  As  to  the  Relation  of  Prose  Forins  to  Prose  Periods. 
Here,  we  mark  a  connection  so  evident  that  it  must  be 
something  more  than  accidental.  Elizabethan  and  Au- 
gustan Prose  can  not  be  conceived  of  as  properly  inter- 
changing places.  The  Spectator  and  Dryden's  ''Critical 
Prefaces ' '  are  not  looked  for  as  contemporary  with  the 
Essays  of  Bacon,  as  these  are  not  sought  in  the  more  ex- 
pansive era  of  Macaulay  and  Carlyle.  The  stirring 
forensic  prose  of  the  Commonwealth  came  to  its  excel- 
lence in  the  fulness  of  time,  and  was  not  needed  prior  to 
the  days  of  Milton.  Hooker's  ''Polity"  would  be  a 
strange  volume,  indeed,  in  the  Victorian  age,  as  the  fin- 
ished pages  of  Newman  and  Pater  would  have  been  in 
the  Elizabethan.     The  great  Historical  Prose  of  Hume 


262  LITEBATUBE 

and  Gibbon;  the  Prose  Fiction  of  Fielding  and  Eichard- 
son;  the  Philosophic  Prose  of  Coleridge,  each  arose  when 
needed,  while  the  Modern  Era  is  what  it  is  because  it  is 
when  it  is  and  not  earlier  or  later.  Here,  again.  Litera- 
ture adjusts  itself  to  Life. 

C.  As  to  the  Belation  of  Prose  Forms  to  the  Ideas  behind 
them.  Here  we  open  the  vexed  question  of  the  true  re- 
lation of  Form  to  Thought,  of  what  is  called  Style  to 
Subject -Matter.  Is  the  relation  conventional  or  vital? 
To  this  it  may  be  answered,  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
in  authorship  as  mere  form;  that  all  true  literature,  in 
prose  or  verse,  and  especially  in  prose,  is  the  expression 
of  a  substantive  something  beneath  it.  It  is  an  embodi- 
ment of  thought.  Irreparable  injury  has  been  done  by 
the  Esthetic  School,  in  their  unwarranted  emphasis  of 
the  formal  side  of  literature,  as  an  end  in  itself  and  for 
purely  artistic  effect.  Literature,  in  its  last  analysis, 
is  the  expression  of  thought,  and  tho,  as  distinct  from 
Science  and  Philosophy,  that  expression  must  have  due 
regard  to  the  claims  of  art  and  taste,  it  must,  also,  be  so 
embodied  and  conveyed  as  to  give  to  the  thought  its 
well-deserved  primacy.  Literature,  it  can  not  be  too 
strongly  urged,  is  one  of  the  Intellectual  Arts.  Its  vari- 
ous forms  are,  therefore,  mental  and  not  merely  verbal. 

-D.  Hence,  the  Final  Suggestion,  as  to  the  Belation  of  the 
Type  and  the  Man.  Here,  we  need  not  be  in  doubt. 
Literature  has  no  place  in  and  of  itself.  It  is  nothing  if 
not  the  open  expression  of  the  author  behind  it.  Per- 
sonality is  its  prime  essential.  "VVe  speak  of  the  man 
and  the  book.  More  correctly,  it  is  the  man  in  the  book, 
and  Literature  is  but  the  free  spirit  of  man  for  the  time 
circumscribed  by  human  limitations.  That  literature  is 
the  best  and  most  potent  in  the  world's  mental  history 


PRIMARY  PROSE  TYPES  263 

wliicli  gives  to  this  conscious  and  semi-divine  spirit  in 
man  the  fullest  freedom  and  function.  Literature,  it  is 
said,  is  the  expression  of  thought  in  written  form.  More 
than  this,  it  is  the  expression  of  soul  and  life,  of 
human  personality,  of  a  man's  essential  self,  of  his  deep- 
est experiences  and  highest  ideals.  Tho  a  Science  and 
an  Art,  it  is,  more  distinctively  still,  a  Eevelation  and  a 
Vision. 

Literary  Forms  be  they  this  or  that,  be  they  in  Prose 
or  Verse,  are  of  value  only  as  they  serve  to  receive  and 
convey  to  men  in  unmistakable  terms  and  ways  this 
Vision  and  this  Eevelation. 


CHAPTER    FIVE 
THE  HISTORICAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  EPIC  VERSE 

Literary  critics  liave  practically  agreed  on  the  classi- 
fication of  the  primary  types  of  verse  as  three,  Epic, 
Dramatic  and  Lyric,  with  two  subordinate  types,  the 
Descriptive  and  the  Didactic,  the  last  one  of  these  being 
the  least  essentially  poetic  of  all,  while  Descriptive  Yerse 
is  in  reality  a  miscellaneous  or  composite  type,  express- 
ing in  combination  many  of  the  features  belonging  to  the 
three  primary  orders.  It  is  with  the  first  of  these  three 
generic  types,  the  Epic,  that  we  now  have  to  do,  it  being 
our  special  purpose  to  follow  what  may  be  called  its  His- 
torical Development  and  to  explain  some  of  its  leading 
characteristics. 

First,  as  to  the  Definition  of  the  Epic,  the  Greek  word 
— "Enos — meaning,  a  word  or  tale,  and  in  the  plural, 
a  discourse  in  metrical  form,  points,  primarily,  to  the 
idea  of  a  narrative.  It  involves  a  statement  in  poetical 
form,  of  an  event  or  a  series  of  events,  historical  or 
semi-historical ;  possibly,  purely  mythical.  Hence,  it  is 
often  called,  Narrative  Verse,  as  dealing  solely  with  the 
actual  or  imagined  past.  As  has  been  said,  ^  ^  It  is  based 
on  what  has  happened  or  on  what  men  think  has  hap- 
pened," on  history,  or  myth,  the  epoist  holding  himself 
strictly  within  the  region  of  fact  or  what  he  conceives  to 
be  fact.  When  it  is  said — ''that  the  epic  must  rely 
solely  on  the  memory  and  imagination, ' '  the  imagination 
to  which  reference  is  made  is  the  historic  imagination  in 
its  retrospective  function,  as  distinct  from  the  philosophic 

264  J 


I 


EPIC   VERSE  265 

or  poetic  imagination.  The  eye  of  the  mind  is  turned 
backward  upon  the  antecedent  centuries,  historic  and 
prehistoric,  in  order  to  gather  necessary  literary  or  epic 
material.  The  Epic,  moreover,  is  known  as,  Heroic 
Verse,  by  which  it  is  meant  not  only  that  the  particular 
poem  in  question  should  have  a  hero,  or  that  the  theme 
should  be  heroic,  but  that  the  epic  throughout,  as  a  poetic 
product,  in  its  inception,  unfolding,  governing  aim  and 
final  effect  should  illustrate  this  feature.  It  is  with  this 
fact  in  view  that  Epic  Verse  might  be  defined  to  be — 
The  Presentation  in  Metrical  Narrative  of  Actions  and 
Events  Heroic  in  their  nature. 

As  to  the  Origin  of  the  Epic,  we  are  carried  back,  in 
tracing  it,  to  the  origin  of  poetry  itself,  to  that  primitive, 
precivilized  period  when  men  were  little  more  nor  less 
than  children  of  nature,  living  out  under  the  open  sky, 
in  constant  communion  with  heaven  and  earth  and  sea, 
receiving,  in  their  own  way,  the  multiform  impressions 
that  came  to  them  through  mind  and  sense,  and  commu- 
nicating, in  their  own  way,  such  impressions  in  myth 
and  song  and  saga.  The  origin  of  Epic  Verse  is  thus 
natural  and  ancient,  antedating  prose  expression,  and 
taking  us  back  to  that  simplicity  of  thought  and  life 
which  may  be  said  to  have  disappeared  from  history  as 
civilization  appeared  and  developed.  Bards  and  min- 
strels composed  these  ballads  and  sang  them  to  listening 
courts  with  the  joyful  accompaniment  of  harp  and  lyre. 
More  than  this,  poetry  claims  a  sacred  and  even  a  divine 
character.  It  is  supernatural  as  well  as  natural  in  origin, 
intimately  allied  to  all  religious  life  and  worship.  It  is 
most  at  home  in  temples  and  at  altars.  It  is  an  inspira- 
tion and  a  divine  endowment,  a  vatic  gift  for  holy  uses, 
whereby  the  poet  and  the  priest  become  one  in  function, 


266  LITEBATUEE 

and  the  finite  is  brought  into  closest  affinity  with  the  in- 
finite. It  is  ' '  the  vision  and  the  faculty  divine ' '  in  its 
earliest  manifestation.  It  is  this  twofold  origin  of  verse 
that  so  invests  the  study  of  it  with  interest  and  makes  it 
incumbent  on  the  student  to  coordinate  all  the  complex 
elements  that  compose  it.  Epic  Verse,  most  of  all,  ex- 
hibits this  suggestive  combination.  On  its  narrative  or 
historic  side,  it  is  a  thoroughly  natural,  secular  form  of 
verse,  while,  on  its  symbolic  side,  it  carries  us  aloft  to  the 
highest  phases  of  the  supersensible.  If  it  is  true,  as 
Professor  Gummere  states  it,  ^'that  belief  in  the  impres- 
sions of  sense  is  the  foundation  of  the  early  epic, "  it  is 
equally  true  that  belief  in  the  impressions  of  the  super- 
sensible is  a  valid  foundation,  the  distance,  in  these  prim- 
itive eras,  between  the  natural  and  supernatural  being 
reduced  to  the  minimum,  if  not,  indeed,  to  the  vanishing 
point.  It  is  thus  that  Tyler,  in  his  '^Primitive  Cul- 
ture, ' '  teaches  us  that  epic  poetry  goes  back  ' '  to  that 
actual  experience  of  nature  and  life  which  is  the  ultimate 
source  of  human  fancy ''  which  is  the  same  as  saying  that 
the  original  source  of  the  epic  is  found  in  the  era  of  legend, 
as  being  an  essentially  poetic  era  and  as  marking  the  in 
separable  union  of  the  actual  and  mythical.  Tacitus,  in 
his  "Germania,"  acquaints  us  with  the  characteristics 
of  these  old  Germanic  legends  in  which  the  heroic  deeds 
of  gods  and  men  were  completely  blended,  when  man  was 
deified  and  the  divinities  incarnated  and  all  the  processes 
of  nature  personified  and  spiritualized.  That  these 
myths  and  mythologies  were  a  fruitful  source  of  poetic 
and  epic  literature  it  is  needless  to  state.  The  very  word, 
legend,  is  synonymous  with  the  word,  narrative,  while 
such  nariation  of  necessity  and  by  natural  process  ex- 
pressed itself  in  verse  rather  than  in  prose  and  mainly 


EPIC   VERSE  267 

through  the  medium  of  sigu  and  symbol.    Whether  orig- 
inating in  Scandinavia  or  Germany  or  Celtic  Britain  or 
in  the  Orient,  these  unwritten  sagas  of  the  oldest  life  of 
the  race  were  the  real  materia  epica  of  the  world's  liter- 
ature.    In  fact,  we  are  now  treating  of  a  time  which  by 
way  of  eminence  may  be  called,  the  Golden  Age  of  the 
heroic,  the  Epic  Age  of  man.     What  a  fascination  there 
is  in  the  era,  as  we  study  it^ — when  all  conventionality, 
social  and  literary,  was  made  impossible   by  the  very 
temper  of  the  time  ;  when  the  world  was  young  and  fresh 
and  daring  and  far  more  the  subject  of  romance  than  of 
reason  or  reality  ;  when  poetry  was  the  expression  of  the 
ideal  as  it  has  never  been  since  and  can  not  possibly  be  ; 
when  the  people  at  large  were  poets,  and  contributed,  as 
such,  to  their  tribal  and  national  verse  ;  when  literature 
itself  was  unlettered,  in  any  highly  esthetic  sense,  and 
simply  sought,  as  Stevenson  states  it,  to  express  'Hhe 
eternal  life  of  man  spent  under  sun  and  rain."     Such 
was  the  epic  age,  the  source  and  inspiration  of  all  later 
epics,  the  age  of  popular  verse,  which  should  be  read  by 
us,  as  Herder  tells  us,  as  if  its  authors  were  singing  in 
our  streets  and  quite  unconscious  of  the  conditions  and 
I  restrictions  of  what  we  call  our  cultured  modern  life. 
,  Hence,  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  epic  in  its  earliest  and 
rmost  highly  elaborated  form  is  a  growth,  and  not  a  mere 
?  collection   or  compilation  fortuitously  gathered  and  in 
^process  of  time  unified  by  some  guiding  and  masterful 
fhand.     It  is  ^'the  spontaneous  growth  of  a  whole  peo- 
ple," rising  to  its  first  expression  in  the  earliest  child- 
,  hood  of  the  race,  and  assuming  more  and  more  modified 
^form  and  function  as  the  race  develops  toward  a  vigor- 
ous and  aggressive  manhood,  — first  expressed  and  best 
^expressed  in  oral  form,  in  the  unstudied  minstrelsy  of  the 


268  LITERATURE 

bards.  Once  originated,  however,  what  may  be  called, 
The  Historical  Development  of  the  Epic,  may  be  said  to 
be  partly  in  keeping  with  general  historical  and  literary 
development  but,  mainly,  an  independent  development, 
following  its  own  instinctive  leadings  and  seeking  to  pre- 
serve, as  far  as  possible,  its  original  spontaneity.  The 
teaching  of  Macaulay  '  ^  that  the  most  wonderful  proof  of 
genius  is  a  great  poem  produced  in  a  civilized  age  "  has 
a  special  application  to  epic  verse,  and  emphasizes  the 
fact  that  this  independent  epic  expansion  is  seriously 
impeded  by  the  necessary  conditions  of  highly  civilized 
life. 

The  possible  forms  which  the  Epic  may  assume  or  has 
historically  assumed  is  a  subject  of  critical  interest. 
Various  classifications  have  been  adopted  and  may  be 
said  to  possess  their  respective  merits.  Thus,  we  speak 
of  a  fourfold  Division.     It  is  as  follows: 

The  Epic  proper,  as  seen  in  the  '^ Iliad"  and  "Odys- 
sey" I  the  Metrical  Eomance,  as  seen  in  Chaucer's 
"Eoman  de  la  Eose,"  a  kind  of  semi-epic,  midway  be- 
tween the  epic  and  specifically  romantic  verse  ;  the 
Metrical  Chronicle,  as  in  Eobert  of  Gloucester's  "His- 
tory of  England,"  essentially  narrative  as  history,  and 
containing,  withal,  the  substantive  epic  feature  ;  Ballads 
and  Tales,  of  the  heroic  order,  as  seen  in  Macaulay' s 
"Lays  of  Ancient  Eome,"  in  which  the  epic  borders 
closely  on  the  lyric  and  descriptive  and  in  which  brevity 
is  a  conspicuous  feature.  What  is  called,  The  Heroic 
Ode,  as  seen  in  Keat's  "Ode  to  Liberty,"  would  illus- 
trate it,  it  still  being  an  open  question  just  where  the 
ballad  is  of  the  lyric  order  and  where  of  the  epic.  So, 
we  might  classify  into  the  Higher  and  the  Subordinate; 
Epic.     We  hear  of  the  Earlier  and   the   Later  Epics. 


EPIC   YEBSE  269 

"VVliat  Taylor  calls,  The  Medieval  Epics,  the  epics  of 
the  Dark  Ages,  lie  midway  between  the  primitive  and 
the  modern.     A  simple  twofold  order  will  sufiice  : 

A.  Primary  Forms,  embracing  the  Popular  or  Folk 
Epic,  and  The  Courtly  or  Art  Epic. 

B.  The  Secondary  Forms,  embracing  The  Allegorical 
or  Symbolic  Epic,  and  Ballads. 

''In  examining  the  German  Epics  of  the  Middle 
Ages,"  says  Taylor,  ''and  tracing  the  sources  of  their 
material  as  well  as  the  tastes  or  fashions  of  thought 
which  have  had  an  influence  in  determining  their  char- 
acter, we  soon  discover  the  presence  of  two  very  clearly 
separated  elements.  One  has  a  racy  flavor  of  the  native 
soil,  the  other  betrays  the  presence  of  foreign  ingredi- 
ents," and  he  adds,  "I  should  call  the  first  the  Epic 
Poetry  of  the  People,  and  the  second.  The  Epic  Poetry 
of  The  Courts."  A  brief  examination  of  each  of  these 
classes  will  serve  to  throw  light  on  a  subject  invested 
with  difficulty  and  as  to  which  there  is  ample  room  for 
individual  judgment. 

First  in  time  and,  indeed,  in  importance  is  The  Popu- 
lar or  Folk  Epic,  the  genuine  Volkslied  of  German  Let- 
ters, one  of  the  most  significant  poetic  expressions  of 
that  Primitive  Culture  of  which  Taylor  speaks.  It  may 
justly  be  called,  The  Primitive  Epic,  as  compared  with 
other  and  later  forms.  Burger  would  term  it  "the  epic 
of  nature,"  as  distinct  from  the  epic  of  art,  the  most  un- 
studied and  original  form  in  which  the  epic  genius  of 
any  race  or  nation  seeks  to  embody  and  perpetuate  itself. 
The  appellation  given  it  by  critics,  "the  communal 
epic  "  points  to  its  origin  as  popular  or  general,  as  dis- 
tinct from  those  later,  subordinate  forms  whose  produc- 
tion may  be  traced  to  some  individual  bard.     This  com- 


270  LITERATURE 

munal,  racial  or  national  origin  of  the  Folk-Epic,  by 
reason  of  whicli  it  is  so  called,  is  one  of  its  fundamental 
features  and  pervades  the  poetic  criticism  of  all  medie- 
val verse,  the  primal  question  being  whether  it  is  the 
unconscious  evolution  of  the  people's  poetic  life,  gradu 
ally  consolidating  into  what  we  call  a  poem,  or  whether 
it  is  the  specific  product  of  a  specific  poet.  Hence,  we 
read  of  a  poetry  ''which  belongs  to  no  one  poet,  which 
appeals  to  the  ear  rather  than  to  the  eye,  which  once 
came  from  the  people  as  a  whole  and  represents  the  sen- 
timent neither  of  individuals  nor  of  a  class. ' ' 

Students  of  German  Literature  and  the  history  of 
poetic  criticism  are  well  aware  of  the  almost  passionate 
enthusiasm  with  which  the  poet  Herder  contended  for 
this  Folk-Epic  or  the  popular  principle  as  constituting 
the  essence  of  all  true  poetic  life.  He  has  been  followed 
in  Germany  and  elsewhere  by  a  goodly  number  of  sin- 
cere disciples.  He  insisted,  in  the  language  of  Goethe, 
' '  that  Poetry  is  the  mother  tongue  of  man ' '  ;  that  it  is 
coterminous  in  its  origin  with  language  itself ;  that  when 
the  people  speak  unconsciously;  they  speak  poetically; 
their  oldest  legends  and  traditions  "of  themselves  taking 
on  poetic  form ' '  quite  unaided  by  any  rubric  of  the 
schools.  He  thus  calls  Homer  "  a  singer  of  the  people  " 
and  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  may  in  a  sense  be  said  to  have 
composed  themselves,  so  fully  were  they  the  spontaneous 
outflow  of  the  language  and  life  of  the  ancient  Greek. 
Thus  it  is  in  fullest  sympathy  with  Herder  that  Jacob 
Grimm,  the  great  philologist,  insists  that  it  is  useless  to 
seek  after  the  author  of  "The  Nibeluugen  Lied"  as, 
indeed,  must  be  the  case  with  all  national  poems  because 
they  belong  to  the  folk  as  a  whole."  "Every  epic,"  he 
adds,  "must  compose  itself"  as  the  poetry  of  nature  pure 


EPIC   VERSE  271 

and  simple.  "Epic  poetry,"  tie  reiterates,  "can  no 
more  be  made  than  history  can  be  made, "  It  is  the  folk, 
in  its  composite,  communal  character  which  for  the  time 
becomes  the  bard.  The  Popular  Epic  as  thus  described 
is  distinctly  the  epic  of  growth  rather  than  the  epic  of 
comj)osition,  illustrated  in  the  ^ '  Iliad ' '  and  ' '  Odyssey, ' ' 
in  '■ '  The  Nibelungen  Lied ' '  and  '  '■  The  Lay  of  Hilde- 
brand,"  in  the  "^neid"  and  "Beowulf"  and  "The 
Cid, ' '  each  of  which  poems  sprang,  it  is  said,  spontane- 
ously out  of  the  racial  life  of  their  respective  peoples 
and  answers  fully  to  all  the  conditions  of  the  folk- 
epic. 

The  second  form  of  the  Primary  Epic  is.  The  Courtly 
or  Art  Epic,  later  by  necessity  than  the  Communal  Epic 
and,  in  some  respects,  inferior  by  reason  of  its  relation 
to  the  canons  of  art  and  the  conditions  of  advancing  civ- 
ilization. It  is  the  epic  of  modern  culture  rather  than 
of  primitive  culture  ;  the  epic  of  literature  proper  rather 
than  of  unliterary  and  preliterary  periods  ;  of  specific 
personal  origin  rather  than  of  general  origin  ;  the  ex- 
pression of  esthetic  study  rather  than  of  nature.  In  fine, 
it  is  the  epic  of  the  schools,  and  suggestive  in  its  historic 
forms  of  the  various  eras  and  tendencies  under  whose 
influence  it  is  produced.  Eeference  has  been  made  to 
Herder' s  enthusiastic  defense  of  the  Popular  Epic  as  the 
only  legitimate  type  and  in  full  accord  with  the  natural 
origin  of  all  verse  as  distinct  from  prose.  This  second 
form,  also,  has  found  able  advocates,  the  controversy  as 
to  origin,  whether  popular  or  scholastic,  almost  equally 
dividing  the  earlier  critics.  Schlegel,  AYolf,  Miillenhoff, 
Scherer,  Paul  and  Bohme  stoutly  contend  for  the  prin- 
ciple of  individual  authorship,  decry  the  idea  that  epics 
produce  themselves,  and,  while  admitting  the  popular 


272  LITEBATUBE 

factor,  refuse  to  consider  it  in  itself  a  sufficient  explana- 
tion of  the  epic  proper. 

These  old  mythologies,  they  concede,  existed  and  fur- 
nished epic  material  for  the  earliest  bards,  but  they  also 
submit  that  a  poem  argues  a  poet,  an  epic  an  epoist,  and 
that  '^Beowulf"  and  the  ^^ Iliad"  must  finally  be  as- 
signed to  a  definite  origin  in  the  person  of  one  or  several 
authors.  These  advocates  of  the  Courtly  Epic  speak  of 
'■ '  the  nebulous  poet-aggregate  called  Folk, ' '  deny  ' '  that 
a  whole  people  ever  made  songs, ' '  and  plead  for  what  they 
call  ' '  the  theory  of  artistry. ' '  There  is  truth  in  each  of 
these  positions  and  a  foundation  for  each  of  these  typical 
forms,  the  Art  Epic  of  the  later  age  being  as  natural 
to  the  advancing  stages  of  modern  civilized  life  as  the 
Folk-Epic  is  to  the  cruder  conditions  of  primitive  peri- 
ods. Moreover,  it  may  be  added,  that,  as  in  the  Popular 
Epic,  a  certain  measure  of  artistic  skill  must  be  present, 
so,  in  the  Courtly  Epic,  there  must  be  found  a  certain 
measure  of  the  popular  element  to  constitute  it  a  genuine 
poem. 

Hence,  it  is  suggestive  to  note,  as  Taylor  tells  us, 
that  in  the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth  century,  ' '  The 
Mbelungen  Lied, ' '  a  strictly  Folk-Epic,  was  reproduced 
in  two  distinct  versions,  the  popular,  under  the  title, 
The  ' '  Vulgata ' '  and  the  formal.  It  was  a  popular  poem 
to  be  recited  at  courts.  Be  this  as  it  may  and  despite 
the  fact  that  the  courtly  version  soon  fell  into  abeyance 
and  disappeared,  it  may  be  justly  urged  that  there  is 
room  in  literature  for  these  two  epic  types  and  that  his- 
torically they  are  found  to  exist.  Thus,  it  might  be 
argued,  that  the  ^' Iliad"  and  ''Odyssey"  are  both  com- 
munal and  courtly,  classical  epics  of  a  preclassical 
period,  the  materia  epica,  as  found  in  the  Greek  Myth- 


EPIC   VEE8E  273 

ology,  being  partly  natural  in  origin,  their  adjustment 
into  epic  form  being,  in  every  sense,  artistic.  The  same 
suggestion  applies  to  ^'The^neid"  and,  to  a  limited 
extent,  at  least,  to  the  Old  English  '^Beowulf."  So,  of 
the  epics  adduced  as  Courtly,  such  as  Tasso'  s  ' '  Jerusalem 
Delivered  "  or  "  The  Lusiad  "  or  ' '  The  Messiah  ' '  or 
Ccedmon's  ''Paraphrase,"  impartial  criticism  must 
allege  that  a  certain  measure  of  the  natural  and  racial 
exists  in  them,  even  tho  the  artistic  element  may  con- 
trol. The  ' '  Paradise  Lost "  is  as  scholarly  an  epic  as 
literature  contains  and,  yet,  no  one  would  be  so  bold  as 
to  contend  that  it  was  exclusively  scholarly  or  artistic, 
the  basis  of  its  myth  and  mythology  taking  us  back  not 
only  to  the  Old  Testament  History,  but  to  those  ancient 
traditions  that  lie  back  of  the  biblical  narrative  itself 
and  furnish  material  alike  for  j)oet  and  chronicler. 

These  are  the  two  cardinal  epic  types,  nor  is  it  a  mat- 
ter of  material  moment  to  the  literary  student  that  they 
should  be  too  sharply  differentiated,  it  being  often  im- 
possible to  assign  any  given  epic  to  one  of  these  classes 
exclusive  of  the  other.  Suffice  is  to  say,  that  to  the  one 
or  the  other  and  to  both  as  related  all  the  great  epics 
may  safely  be  assigned. 

There  is  a  second  order  of  Epics  which  may  be  called — 
Subordinate  Epics  or  Secondary. 

Of  these,  the  first  is  The  Allegorical  or  Symbolic  Epic, 
the  Epic  of  Eomance,  an  order  of  Epic  less  marked  by 
sublimity  and  majestic  movement  than  the  primary 
forms,  and  more  fully  characterized  by  the  presence  of 
fancy  and  adventure  and  chivalrous  sentiment.  It  is  a 
kind  of  romantic  narrative  midway  between  history  and 
legend,  as  seen  in  Chaucer's  ''  Legende  of  Good  Women," 
in  Scott's  ''Marmion,"  in  "Enoch  Arden"  and  ''Hia- 


274  LITEBATUBE 

watlia"  aud  in  ''Piers  the  Plowman."  Malory's 
''King  Arthur"  has  thus  been  called — "An  Epical 
Eomance. ' '  We  might  call  it,  by  inversion,  a  romantic 
ei)ic.  What  is  known  as,  The  Eomance  of  Chivalry,  so 
current  in  the  Middle  Ages  as  seen  in  the  Charlemagne 
and  Arthurian  aud  Classical  Cycles,  is  of  this  secondary 
order,  the  romance  often  taking  the  form  of  religious 
legend,  as  allegorically  representing  some  Christian 
virtue,  as  embodied  in  the  lives  of  the  saints.  The  cycle 
of  poems  centering  about  the  Legend  of  The  Holy  Grail 
is  of  this  particular  type,  as  are  ' '  Judith ' '  and  ' '  Elene ' ' 
and '' Christ. "  Tennyson's ''Saint  Simon  Stylites"  or 
Arnold's  "Saint  Brandan"  would  be  classified  here. 
The  "Faerie  Queene,"  lying  closely  on  the  border-line  of 
the  Courtly  Epic,  is  the  most  signal  examx^le  in  English 
of  the  Allegorical  Epic,  being,  from  first  to  last,  of  this 
symbolic  order,  in  structure  and  imagery  aud  poetic 
purpose,  while  the  "Divina  Commedia"  "the  supreme 
allegory  of  the  world,"  partakes  as  well  of  the  courtly 
and  artistic  character  of  the  epic  proper.  What  is  called. 
The  Fable,  expressed,  at  times,  in  the  well-known  Beast 
Epic  of  Literature,  falls  properly  under  this  romantic 
category.  In  the  "Eape  of  the  Lock,"  there  is  seen 
the  Epic  Parody,  a  real  Mock-Heroic  poem,  exhibit- 
ing, in  burlesque  form,  many  of  the  features  of  epic 
allegory. 

Another  form  of  the  Secondary  Epic  is  seen  in  Ballads 
and  Tales,  a  poetic  title  that  evinces  the  close  relation 
of  epic  and  lyric  verse,  and,  at  times,  the  epic  aud  dram- 
atic, the  Epic  Ballad,  however,  being  distinctive  enough 
to  have  a  separate  place  and  function.  Such  are  some 
of  Macaulay's  "Lays  of  Ancient  Eome,"  Longfellow's 
' '  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus, ' '  Kingsley'  s  ' '  Three  Fishers, ' ' 


EPIC   VERSE  275 

Schiller's  "Diver,"  some  of  Thackeray's  Ballads,  and 
Byron's  "Corsair."  The  Old  English  "Battle  of  Mal- 
don"  and  of  "Brunauburh"  are  thus  epic  in  character, 
the  term,  Ballad,  as  Childs  has  shown  us,  taking  on  a 
large  variety  of  form,  sacred  and  secular,  historical  and 
fanciful,  and  not  infrequently  exhibiting  the  genuine 
marks  of  the  primitive  folk-epic  of  prehistoric  times. 
In  fact,  the  Ballad  is  the  Folk-Song,  the  old  Epic  of  the 
people  in  miniature,  the  heroic  ode  of  later  European 
verse.  It  is  one  of  the  forms  of  communal  song,  losing 
more  and  more  of  its  original  freshness  as  civilization 
advanced. 

When  we  are  told  "that  the  ballad  must  give  us  the 
sense  of  tradition  and  a  flavor  of  spontaneity, ' '  this  is  as 
much  as  to  say  that  the  ballad  and  the  popular  epic  are 
essentially  the  same,  historically  expressed  under  a  wide 
variety  of  form. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  state  and  discuss  the  Leading 
Characteristics  of  the  Epic. 

In  so  far  as  Structure  is  concerned,  logical  and  liter- 
ary. Unity  must  be  preserved,  as  to  theme,  thought, 
method  and  pui-pose,  involving,  according  to  Aristotle, 
the  completeness  of  the  epic,  its  opening  progress  and 
close.  The  action  must  be  one.  Whatever  the  details 
may  be,  the  central  thought  must  be  clear  and  all  inci- 
dental matter  made  dependent  on  it.  The  Epic  as  a  nar- 
rative poem  insists  on  this  historical  unity,  the  events 
occurring  in  regular  order  and  with  reference  to  some 
leading  personage  or  principle.  Episodes  are  admissible 
only  as  related  to  the  main  topic  and  indirectly  contrib- 
uting to  its  development,  it  being  clearly  discernible  by 
the  observing  student  whether  such  ej)isodes  are  forcibly 
introduced  or  in  obedience  to  the  natural  demands  of  the 


276  LITERATURE 

subject.     Properly  interpreted,  the  hero  of  the  epic  is 
suiiicient  in  himself  to  preserve  its  unity. 

Further,  as  to  Structure,  there  is  something  of  the 
Dramatic  Element  involved,  tho  incidental  and  excep- 
tional. In  Homer,  this  feature  is  expressed,  as  elsewhere, 
in  the  external  form  of  the  dialog.  Hence,  there  is  a 
sense  in  which  the  phrase  ''  poetry  of  action  "  as  applied 
to  the  epic  is  a  proper  one,  it  being  carefully  noted  that 
such  action  is  narrated  or  recited,  in  regular  historic 
order,  rather  than  being  represented  as  in  the  Play  for 
scenic  effect  upon  the  stage.  Apart  from  these  two  laws 
of  structure,  there  are  some  distinctive  epic  elements. 
The  first  is  Scope,  vastness  of  outlook,  an  unlimited 
range  over  which  the  historic  imagination  is  to  wander. 
It  takes  in  the  entire  past  of  human  events  and,  in  so  far 
as  the  epic  involves  the  semi-historical  or  legendary  is 
not  confined  to  the  region  of  reality. 

Sustained  Power,  is  a  further  element ;  the  possession 
of  an  order  of  mental  ability  able,  in  current  phrase,  to 
hold  its  own,  from  first  to  last,  throughout  the  unfolding 
of  the  narrative.  More  is  meant  here  than  mere  histor- 
ical continuity,  the  revelation  of  the  sequence  of  events. 
The  continuity  is  mental.  There  must  be  evidence  of 
ability  to  compass  the  scheme  proposed,  so  that  there  shall 
not  be  abrupt  transitions  from  mastery  to  mediocrity. 
It  is  a  power  in  poetry  corresponding  to  that  of  the  athlete 
in  the  long  and  trying  ordeal  of  the  actual  contest,  to  that 
of  the  eagle  on  the  wing  in  mid-heaven  from  dawn  to 
dawn.  It  is  here  that  creative  genius  enters  into  the  epic 
as  a  mental  product,  the  requirement  that  this  expres- 
sion of  genius  shall  be  so  pronounced  as  to  hold  the  poet 
steadily  to  his  work  until  it  is  completed.  It  is,  indeed, 
the  most  crucial  test  to  which  he  is  subjected. 


|i 


EPIC   VERSE  277 

Exaltation,  is  another  element,  applicable  to  the  theme 
as  heroic  and  to  the  entire  content  of  the  poem.  The 
thought,  diction,  method,  spirit  and  final  aim  must  be, 
in  the  language  of  Longinus,  sublime.  As  the  word  ety- 
mologically  means,  it  must  be  elevated.  "Whatever  may 
or  may  not  be  true  of  prose  writing  or  of  the  other  forms 
of  verse.  Sublimity  is  the  first  essential  of  the  Epic,  as- 
suming, at  times,  an  almost  supernatural  cast  as  depend- 
ent on  the  special  theme  in  hand.  The  great  religious 
epics  of  literature  are  of  this  special  order.  Critics  speak 
of  'Hhe  stately  and  formal "  character  of  the  epic,  a  kind 
of  imposing  movement  which  the  epic  as  an  exalted  pro- 
duction naturally  assumes.  There  is  a  loftiness  of  con- 
ception and  execution  without  the  presence  of  which  it 
can  not  exist,  a  high  decorum  and  demeanor  in  keeping 
with  the  spacious  historic  background  on  which  the  epic 
rests  and  the  exalted  purpose  which  it  has  in  view.  It 
might  be  called,  the  dignity  of  the  epic,  a  something 
worthy  of  its  origin  and  aim. 

Simplicity  is  essential,  an  element  of  literary  product 
common  to  prose  and  verse,  applicable  alike  to  form  and 
content,  to  method  and  purpose,  to  the  author  and  au- 
thorship, an  indefinable  something  without  which  litera- 
ture can  not  exist,  in  any  substantive  excellence.  It  is 
first  in  importance  and  last  of  attainment,  the  complete 
triumph  of  the  natural  over  the  artificial,  in  keeping 
with  tlie  highest  art,  and,  yet,  immeasurably  above  it, 
especially  essential  to  the  epic  because  of  its  exalted 
type. 

A  final  feature  is,  Impressiveness,  mental,  moral  and 
literary,  as  embodied  in  the  gradual  unfolding  of  the 
narrative,  and,  most  of  all,  in  the  sum  total  of  its  efiect 
on  the  mind  of  the  reader.     It  is  that  ^  ^  high  serious- 


278  LITEBATUBE 

ness"  which  is  germane  to  the  sublime,  in  nature,  art 
and  literature.  It  is  sublimity  itself.  Tho  the  epic 
enforces  no  ostensible  moral,  it  is,  after  all,  morally  sub- 
lime and,  hence,  impressive,  demanding  of  the  reader  a 
kind  of  deference  amounting  to  reverence,  as  he  attempts 
to  compass  'Hhe  height  of  that  great  argument"  to 
which  it  summons  him. 

Such,  in  brief,  are  the  cardinal  elements  of  the  Epic, 
it  being  always  understood  that  the  human  factor  in  the 
epic,  despite  all  myth  and  symbol,  must  be  sufficiently 
present  to  keep  it  well  within  the  conditions  of  narrative 
verse  and  enable  it  to  awaken  and  sustain  a  valid  human 
interest.  Hence,  it  is  almost  needless  to  state,  that  the 
epic,  in  its  highest  forms,  is  a  type  of  verse  difficult  of 
production,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  rare  in  literature. 
Not  more  than  ten  or  twelve  such  masterpieces  can  be 
found,  it  being  especially  notable  when  any  literature, 
such  as  that  of  Greece,  possesses  more  than  one  un- 
doubted example.  The  conditions  are  too  exacting  to 
meet  with  frequent  fulfilment,  while  it  is  to  the  high 
credit  of  general  letters  to  note  that  a  goodly  number  of 
poems  exist  illustrative  of  the  second  epic  order,  and  a 
larger  number  yet  of  poems  that  are  epical  in  tone  and 
aim. 

It  would  be  an  interesting  study  to  trace  the  history 
of  the  English  Epic,  to  discover,  if  possible,  the  presence 
of  some  historical  nexus,  as  we  find  it  in  the  English 
Drama  and  in  English  Prose.  Such  a  survey  would 
open  with  Csedmon's  Paraj)hrase,  ''The  Epic  of  the 
Fall  of  Man,"  the  great  Bible  Epic  of  Old  English,  and 
with  ''Beowulf,"  the  still  greater  Battle  Epic  of  the 
time,  and  with  the  Legends  of  the  Saints,  as  found  in 
' '  Elene  "  and  "  Judith  "  and  "  Guthlac ' '  and  ' '  Christ. ' ' 


EPIC   VJEJB8E  279 

In  the  Norman  Era,  ''the  golden  age  of  romantic  narra- 
tive," as  seen  in  chronicle  and  allegory,  we  note,  the 
''Brut,"  the  "Vision  of  Piers  the  Plowman"  and 
Chaucer's  Legendary  Tales.  In  the  Modern  Period,  are 
the  "Faerie  Queene,"  the  epics  of  Milton,  Sonthey, 
Scott,  Keats,  Byron,  Browning,  Morris,  Swinburne  and 
Tennyson  and  Longfellow,  a  list  sufficiently  large  to  con- 
stitute a  history  and  awaken  the  interest  of  the  student 
of  letters. 

There  is  one  aspect  of  the  subject  that  needs  emphasis. 
It  is  the  Eeproduction  of  the  old  Germanic  Epics  in 
Modern  English,  the  racial  relation  of  the  two  countries 
making  them  common  heirs  of  that  original  epic  material 
which  is  found  in  the  old  Gothic  and  Scandinavian 
legends.  Thus  Taylor,  himself  an  Anglo-German,  writes 
— "If  we,  as  Americans,  have  an  equal  share  in  Shake- 
speare, Spenser  and  Chaucer  with  our  English  brethren, 
so  the  Gothic  and  Saxon  blood  in  our  veins  claims  the 
inheritance  of  the  '  Hildebrandslied '  and  the  early 
Mbelungen  legends  as  fully  as  the  German  people. ' '  It 
is  a  kind  of  epic  dowry  to  each  of  the  races  as  Teutonic, 
so  that  the  reappearance  of  these  old  Germanic  myths  in 
the  latest  English  Verse  is  directly  in  the  line  of  national 
unity  and  historic  sequence.  Thus,  the  "Lay  of  Hilde- 
brand,"  reappears  in  Arnold's  "  Sohrab  and  Eustum"; 
the  Arthurian  Cycle  of  legends,  in  Bulwer  and  in  South- 
ey's  "King  Arthur"  and  in  Tennyson's  "Idylls  of  the 
King."  The  legend  of  "Der  arme  Heinrich"  is  repro- 
duced in  Tennyson' s  ' '  Enid  ' '  and  Longfellow' s  ' '  Golden 
Legend."  In  Arnold's  "Tristram  and  Iseult"  as  in 
Tennyson's  "Last  Tournament"  the  old  "Tristram" 
of  Gottfried  von  Strasburg  is  seen.  In  Morris'  "Lovers 
of  Gudrun"  and  "Sigurd  the  Volsung"  there  is  the 


280  LITERATURE 

same  reproduction.  In  Tennyson's  ''Sir  Galahad" 
Wolfram  von  Eschenbach'  s  ' '  Parzi val ' '  is  seen,  as  the 
"  Nibelungeu  Trilogy  "  and  ''Lohengrin"  carry  us  back 
to  the  earliest  folk-epic  in  central  Germany.  The  Golden 
Age  of  the  Teutonic  epic  under  the  Hohenstaufens  cor- 
responds, in  duration,  with  the  Golden  Age  of  the  Eng- 
lish Drama.  Thus  poetry  repeats  itself  and  the  popular 
myths  of  the  Middle  Ages  reappear  in  vital  form. 

A  final  question  of  interest  emerges — What  is  the  Epic 
Outlook  %  Is  the  Heroic  Age  in  the  past  only  ?  ' '  Bal- 
ladry of  the  best  Kind, "  it  is  said,  "  is  a  closed  account. ' ' 
Is  it  so  with  the  epic  ballad  ?  The  answer  reopens  the 
prior  question  of  classification  as  Primary  and  Secondary 
Epics,  and  it  may  be  said,  that  the  Age  of  the  Primary 
Folk-Epic  has  passed,  while  even  the  Coiu-tly  Epic  in  its 
highest  form  has  apparently  passed,  the  later  exj)ression 
of  epic  being,  either  translations  of  the  older  epics,  as 
Southey's  "Cid,"  or  such  modifications  of  them  as  we 
have  found  in  ' '  The  Idylls  of  the  King. ' ' 

This  is  not  to  argue  that  modern  verse  marks  a  deca- 
dence, if  so  be  that  other  poetic  forms  have  advanced. 
The  decline  may  be  epic  only.  Sulfice  it  to  say,  that 
contemporary  European  Literature  is  non-epical,  nor  is 
there  any  visible  promise  on  the  literary  horizon  of  the 
near  approach  of  an  epic  day. 


CHAPTER    SIX 

POETRY 

A  LIVING  American  critic  in  discussing  the  subject  of 
Poetry,  opens  his  volume  with  a  chapter  entitled — 
"  Oracles  Old  and  New."  We  may  similarly  open  our 
discussion  by  stating  that  this  fruitful  theme  before  us  is 
ever  old  and  ever  new,  bidding  fair  to  maintain  its  at- 
tractiveness as  a  topic  of  unftiiling  literary  interest. 
Every  new  investigation  of  it  but  serves  to  show  that 
there  are  phases  of  it  yet  unstudied  or  but  partially  re- 
vealed, the  ever  increasing  complexity  of  modern  civili- 
zation so  modifying  its  characteristics  and  exjDression  as 
to  make  it  a  practically  new  subject  to  every  generation 
of  literary  students.  Especially  of  late  has  this  interest 
revived,  so  that  there  has  never  been  a  time  when  this 
particular  theme  has  been  more  closely  and  fully  exam- 
ined than  during  the  closing  decade  of  the  Victorian  Era. 
Few  phases  of  the  discussion  that  were  presented  so  ably 
by  Matthew  Arnold  and  Shairp  have  been  reexamined 
and  enlarged  by  later  critics,  both  on  the  sides  of  theory 
and  of  praxis.  Of  these  recent  and  most  noteworthy 
contributions,  two  or  three  lie  before  us  as  we  write  - 
Courthope's  "Life  in  Poetry  and  Law  in  Taste"  and 
Gummere's  "The  Beginnings  of  Poetry,"  each  of  them 
connecting  the  earliest  and  the  latest  results  of  poetic 
criticism,  each  of  them  marked  by  independent  research, 
and  each  alike  especially  anxious  to  get  down,  if  pos- 
sible, to  the  deepest  foundations  of  the  subject  and  settle 
some  of  the  questions  that  have  hitherto  been  in  debate. 
Some  of  these  questions  are  as  follows  :  What  are  the 

281 


282  LITEBATUBE 

Earliest  Expressions  of  Verse  and  when  did  they  appear ; 
how  shall  Poetry  be  defined  as  to  content  and  form  ;  what 
are  its  relations  to  Prose,  to  rhythm,  meter,  thought, 
feeling,  taste,  art  and  morals  ;  how  far  is  it  Realistic,  and 
how  far  Eomantic  and  Mythical ;  the  Vocabulary  of 
Verse,  what  are  its  primary  features  and  how  secured ; 
what  are  its  Uses  and  Aims  ;  what  is  the  relation  of 
poetic  conception  to  poetic  composition  ;  how  is  Poetry 
enriched,  and  how  are  its  best  interests  retarded  or  ad- 
vanced. Such  are  the  queries  that  arise  at  once  and  open 
up  a  province  of  investigation  as  interesting  as  it  is  prom- 
ising and  difficult.  In  the  study  before  us  we  shall  present 
the  topic  under  two  related  captions — Poetry  and  Poetics, 
representing,  respectively,  the  Content  and  the  Form, 
poetry  as  a  mental  conception  and  an  esthetic  composi- 
tion, as  a  product  of  what  Dowden  has  called,  Mind  and 
Art.  Using  the  words.  Poetry  and  Verse,  as  synony 
mous,  the  word.  Poetics,  would  be  tantamount  to  versifi- 
cation, the  mechanism  of  verse,  the  poem  in  its  external 
appearance  on  the  page.  Poetry  must  have  Subject- 
matter  and  Structure,  an  inner  something,  call  it  what 
we  will,  that  makes  it  Poetry,  and  an  outer  something 
that  makes  it  Poetry,  As  we  study  them  thus  inter- 
preted, their  diversity  and  unity  will  alike  appear. 

POETRY 

As  we  take  up  the  first  and  more  fundamental  of  these 
two  sections  of  the  general  subject,  we  inquire,  at  the 
outset,  as  to 

I.  The  Essentials  of  Poetry,  what  Stedman  calls.  The 
Nature  and  Elements  of  Poetry,  and  what,  in  his  treatise, 
he  specifically  discusses,  under  the  caption — What  is 
Poetry,  a  subject,  it  must  be  conceded,  which  will  baffle 


FOETRT  283 

and  elude  us,  in  some  of  its  phases,  and  whicli  we  can 
hope  to  compass  but  approximately  at  the  best.  As  we 
conceive  it,  it  is  made  uj)  of  four  distinct  and,  yet,  re- 
lated factors,  each  contributing  its  share  toward  the  uni- 
fied result  and  by  their  cooperative  action  making  poetry 
what  it  is. 

1.  The  first  and  most  important  factor  is,  Thought. 
Upon  this,  despite  all  opinions  to  the  contrary,  insist- 
ence must  be  made,  not  that  Thought  is  to  appear  in 
poetic  composition  to  the  same  extent  as  in  prose  or  in 
the  same  way,  but  that  it  is  substantially  to  appear ; 
that,  first  and  last,  the  poet  must  be  a  man  of  ideas; 
a  thinker  as  well   as   a  seer.     He  must  have  sense  as 
well  as  sensibility   and  sentiment,    and  never  be  even 
suspected  of  making  verse  a  covert  for  ignorance  or 
even  for  an  inferior  order    of   mental    ability.      The 
Xonsense  Verses  of  the  English  Schools  were  prescribed 
for  the  pedagogic  purposes  of  the  classroom,  but  surely 
were  never  meant  to  furnish  the  model  for  the  author 
as  a  poet.      '^No  work  of  art,"  we  are  told,  "has  real 
;  import ;  none  endures  unless  the  maker  has  something 
to  say,  some  thought  which  he  must  express  imagina- 
tively. ' '    The  poet  is  a  maker,  and  therefore  comes  under 
the  law  of  ideas  as  a  necessity.     Hence,  we  speak  of  him 
as  creative,  an  original  producer.     Poetry  is  the  product 
;  of  invention  as  well  as  of  imitation.     When  Aristotle 
t  teaches  us  that  "Poetry  is  an  imitative  art,  imitative  of 
the  passions  and  manners  of  men,"  he  is  speaking  of 
5  dramatic  verse  as  represented  in  comedy  and  tragedy  on 
r  the  stage  and  not  of  the  inherent  quality  of  verse  as  de- 
?  pendent  on  mental  life.     When  Mill  speaks  of  it  as  "the 
9  influence  of  our  feelings  over  our  thoughts ' '  this  mental 


284  LITEBATUBE 

feature  is  included.  As  Devey  well  expresses  it — '^It 
is  an  art  both  imitative  and  inventive,  of  which  truth  is 
the  object." 

This  is  not  to  say  that  Poetry  is  to  be  intellectual  in 
the  didactic,  technical  sense  of  the  term  ;  that  the  thought 
is  to  be  so  prominent  as  to  make  it  scholastic  or  specu- 
lative or  even  philosophic  in  its  type,  and  thus  unadapted 
to  the  general  mind;  but  that  thought  shall  be  sufficiently 
present  to  give  a  mental  type  and  basis  to  the  poetry  and 
save  it  from  the  reproach  of  being  superficial ;  that  mind 
shall  superintend  the  whole  productive  process  tho  not 
arbitrarily  imposing  itself  upon  it ;  that  Poetry  shall  be, 
in  a  word,  as  it  ought  to  be,  one  of  the  varied  forms  of 
intellectual  activity.  It  scarcely  need  be  said  that  this 
mental  process  is  more  pronounced  in  certain  forms  of 
poetry  than  in  others,  in  epic  verse  and  in  the  tragic 
drama  more  than  in  lyric  and  descriptive  verse  ;  in  the 
masterpieces  of  Homer,  Shakespeare,  Goethe  and  Eacine 
more  than  in  the  verse  of  Sappho,  Burns,  Goldsmith  and 
Heine. 

Moreover,  in  poetry  as  distinct  from  prose,  the  thought 
is  to   be   iDresented   indirectly,    mediated    through  the 
agency  of  some  other  faculty  or  function.     As  stated  by 
Stedman — '^It  is  the  exclusive  presentation  of  thought 
that  makes  poetry  didactic  and  hence  untrue  in  the  ar- 
tistic sense. ' '     By  this  he  would  say  that  the  thought 
must  be  conveyed  through  other  agencies  and  poetry! 
thus  be  made  to  differ  from  the  sciences  and  philosophies 
in  which  thought  is  presented,  as  such,  exclusive  of  all 
merely  artistic  ends,  and  with  no  purpose  save  that  of 
enunciating  and  enforcing  the  truth  as  truth. 

2.  The  second  factor  is  Imagination.     We  speak  o£ 


POETEY  285 

the  imagination  under  various  points  of  view  and  as  hav- 
ing different  functions,  as  exercised  in  different  ways 
and  spheres.  Thus,  we  note  the  Philosophic  Imagina- 
tion, within  the  province  of  speculative  study,  dealing 
with  problems  that  involve  the  immaterial  and  invisible; 
the  Historic  Imagination,  taking  all  past  time  for  its 
domain,  making  it  live  again  as  if  in  actual  presence  be- 
fore us ;  the  Scientific  Imagination,  as  exercised  among 
the  infinities  of  Mathematics  and  the  immeasurable 
spaces  and  durations  of  Astronomy.  In  Poetry,  how- 
ever, we  have  to  do  but  incidentally  with  these  excep- 
tional modes  of  imaginative  action,  save,  indeed,  as  the 
historic  element  is  involved  in  Narrative  Verse.  We 
deal  here  with  the  Poetic  Imagination  proper,  a  form 
and  function  of  it  so  peculiar  to  verse  that  it  has  but 
modified  illustration  in  general  literature  or  in  the  wide 
department  of  Prose.  Hence  it  is  that  poets  and  critics 
not  a  few  have  satisfied  themselves  with  a  theory  of 
verse  that  either  makes  this  faculty  the  most  prominent 
one  or  the  exclusive  one.  Thus  Bacon  speaks  of  poetry 
as  ''feigned  history."  ''By  poetry,"  says  Macaulay, 
"we  mean  the  art  of  employing  words  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  produce  an  illusion  in  the  imagination."  Shelley 
opens  his  famous  "Defense  of  Poetry"  with  a  compari- 
son of  Eeason  and  Imagination  as  related  to  verse,  in- 
sisting upon  the  superiority  of  the  latter  faculty  and 
stating  conclusively  ' '  that  Poetry  may  be  defined  to  be 
the  expression  of  the  Imagination."     So,  Shakespeare: 

"  The  poet's  eye.  in  a  fine  frenzy  rolling, 
Doth  glance  from  heaven  to  earth, 
*      From  earth  to  heaven; 

And  as  imagination  bodies  forth 
The  forms  of  things  unknown,  the  poet's  pen 
Turns  them  to  shapes,  and  gives  to  airy  nothing 
A  local  habitation  and  a  name." 


286  LITERATURE 

We  speak  of  the  office  of  the  imagination  as  construct- 
ive, combinative,  plastic  and  pictorial,  while  it  is  sig- 
nificant that  in  the  varied  forms  of  poetic  activity  all 
these  offices  are  exercised,  that  of  the  pictorial  being  as 
prominent  as  any.  Here,  also,  as  in  the  case  of  the  In- 
tellectual Element,  the  measure  and  power  of  the  imag- 
inative function  differ  in  different  grades  of  verse — that 
type  of  it  seen  in  the  "  Divina  Commedia,"  or  ''Faust,'' 
or  ' '  Hamlet, ' '  being  of  an  incomparably  higher  order 
than  that  displayed  in  Schiller's  ''Diver"  and  in  Mil- 
ton's "  L' Allegro."  In  the  "Idylls  of  the  King  "  it  is 
one  thing;  in  "Enoch  Arden,"  quite  another;  while  in 
the  great  Epics  of  literature  there  is  a  reach  and  ampli- 
tude about  it  altogether  unique.  The  current  distinction 
between  the  Imagination  and  the  Fancy  is  here  in  place, 
as  marking  the  difference  between  the  exalted  and  seri- 
ous expression  of  the  one  and  the  light  and  often  sportive 
action  of  the  other.  It  is,  moreover,  to  be  suggested  that 
in  no  one  of  the  offices  of  this  faculty,  not  even  in  poetry, 
where  the  error  is  more  natui-al,  is  there  to  be  a  tres- 
pass beyond  the  bounds  of  the  credible  and  rational. 
"  Beyond  the  actual  works  of  nature,"  says  Hobbes,  "a 
poet  may  go;  beyond  its  possibilities,  never."  He 
must  keep  within  the  limits  of  the  probable.  Tho  he 
pass  out  freely  into  the  region  of  the  supernatural,  he 
can  not  pass  into  that  of  the  unnatural.  The  most  dis- 
tant flight  of  the  poet  must  have  a  limit  somewhere  and 
his  very  reveries  be  under  the  regulation  of  reason.  His 
"fine  frenzy"  must  be  under  control,  so  that  mere 
grotesqueness  and  caprice  shall  not  usurp  the  place  of 
judgment,  and  poetic  license  degenerate  into  poetic  law- 
lessness. 


FOETBY  237 

3.  Feeling  is  an  additional  element  of  Poetry.  It  may 
be  expressed  under  various  terms,  as  passion,  sentiment, 
emotion,  sensibility,  fervor.  Poetry  is  an  expression  of 
heart  as  well  as  of  head,  and  more,  indeed,  that  of  the 
heart  than  of  the  head.  If  pressed  to  a  preference,  the 
emotive  element  must  be  given  the  precedence.  Thus 
Wordsworth  speaks  of  Poetry  as  ' '  the  spontaneous  out- 
flow of  powerful  feelings. ' '  Milton  calls  it  '  ^  passionate. ' ' 
It  is  imitative,  says  Aristotle,  of  the  '■  '■  passions ' '  of  men. 
It  is,  says  Elliott,  ' '  impassioned  truth, ' '  while  Stedman 
connects  feeling  and  imagination  in  the  statement  ''that 
the  poetic  utterance  that  lacks  passion  is  seldom  imagi- 
native." Thus  essentially  and  as  a  matter  of  literary 
criticism  and  experience  Poetry  is  emotive  and  takes 
its  place  as  such  among  those  great  historic  agencies 
through  which  the  soul  of  man  finds  outlet  and  enjoy- 
ment. ''The  poetry  of  a  poet,"  says  Mill,  "is  Feeling 
itself."  This  is  but  another  way  of  saying  that  Poetry 
must  be  intense  and  vital,  must  have  a  throb  of  life  in 
it,  revealing  a  distinct  heart  action,  sending  the  blood 
through  and  through  the  body  of  a  nation's  verse. 
Here,  as  before,  the  different  forms  of  verse  require  and 
evince  Feeling  in  different  degrees  and  phases,  the  Epic 
and  Descriptive  naturally  involving  less  of  it  than  the 
Dramatic  and  the  Lyric,  it  being,  most  of  all,  in  the 
sphere  of  tragedy  and  lyric  that  Feeling ^  rises  to  its 
mastery,  as  in  "Athalie"  and  "King  Lear,"  in 
"Comus"  and  "The  Blessed  Damozel."  Within  the 
domain  of  the  Lyric  itself.  Feeling  may  range  from  the 
comparatively  modified  measures  of  it,  as  in  Pope's 
"Pastorals"  or  Macaulay's  "Lays"  or  Vergil's 
"Eclogues"  to  its  most  impassioned  outbursts,  as  in 
Milton's    Sonnets    or    the  National   Songs  of    Modern 


288  LITEBATUBE 

Europe.  In  the  world's  great  Elegies,  as  '^In  Memo- 
riain"  and  "Thyrsis,"  the  passion  tho  less  pronounced 
and  visible  is  equally  vital  and  potent.  So  spacious  is 
the  poetic  province  here,  embracing  all  possible  phases 
of  human  sentiment, — love,  hate,  friendship,  patriotism, 
ambition,  hope,  fear,  joy  and  sorrow,  that  poetrj^,  as  an 
expression  of  feeling,  would  seem  well-nigh  to  cover  the 
whole  ground  of  verse.  It  is  probable  that  at  no  other 
point  of  view  and  in  no  other  aspect  of  it  is  poetry  as  a 
literary  form  so  potent  as  it  is  here,  touches  the  world's 
life  so  closely  and  makes  itself  so  indispensable  a  medium 
for  the  necessary  experiences  of  the  human  heart.  If 
^^  one  touch  of  nature  makes  the  world  akin,"  poetry, 
under  this  phase  of  it,  possesses  and  expresses  that  sym- 
pathetic touch  as  Prose  can  not  possibly  do. 

The  Fourth  Factor  is  Taste,  in  all  the  wide  variety  of 
its  relations  and  applications.  It  is  a  term  difficult  to 
define  and  describe,  as  to  which  literary  critics  are  still 
in  doubt.  Applicable  in  all  the  divisions  of  prose  and 
verse,  it  is  in  Poetry  that  it  has  primary  and  special 
application. 

Some  of  the  theories  historically  held  regarding  it  may 
here  be  stated.  According  to  Cousin,  it  expresses  the 
union  of  all  faculties  and  feelings.  Hutcheson  and  Akeu- 
side  regard  it  as  a  separate  faculty  having  its  own  sepa- 
rate sphere  and  function.  Hume  and  Euskin  emphasize 
it  on  the  side  of  sensibility,  while  Burke,  in  his  notable 
''Essay,"  coordinates  these  differing  opinions  by  conced- 
ing its  twofold  action,  as,  at  times,  a  single  faculty,  and, 
at  times,  a  union  of  faculties  working  to  a  common  end. 
As  far  as  our  present  purpose  is  concerned,  Taste  may 
be  defined  to  be — that  Faculty  and  Sensibility  through 
which  we  come  to  the  knowledge  and  appreciation  of  the 


POETRY  289 

beautiful.  It  thus  combines  knowledge  and  feeling,  one 
of  these  being,  at  times,  more  prominent  than  the  other, 
but  neither  of  them  ever  absent  in  any  comprehensive 
study  of  literature.  In  what  is  known  as  Literary  or 
Poetic  Criticism,  its  function  as  a  faculty  of  discernment 
is  the  more  apparent,  while,  in  the  reading  of  literature 
for  purposes  of  pleasure  or  general  culture,  its  function 
as  a  sensibility  on  the  side  of  appreciation  is  the  more 
prominent.  It  is  further  noticeable,  on  the  basis  of  the 
submitted  definition,  that  the  entire  department,  included 
in  the  term  Beauty,  is  essentially  involved,  and  here  a 
field  of  inquiry  is  0]3ened  full  of  literary  interest,  as  to 
the  Nature  and  possible  Manifestation  of  Beauty,  its 
exact  place  in  literature,  and  the  conditions  of  its  ex- 
pression. At  this  point,  theories  greatly  differ.  With 
Leibnitz,  Beauty  consists  in  perfection.  Plato  views  it 
as  mental  and  spiritual.  With  Diderot,  it  consists  in 
Eelations.  With  Goethe,  it  has  to  do  with  Expression. 
Socrates  viewed  Beauty  and  Utility  as  one.  Augustine 
regarded  it  as  Order  and  Design.  In  the  light  of  our 
purpose,  it  may  be  said  to  be — that  Quality  whose  pres- 
ence is  discovered  and  appreciated  by  the  Taste.  It  is 
at  this  point,  in  the  joint  relations  of  Taste  and  Beauty, 
as  involved  in  Poetry,  that  the  spacious  subject  of  Es- 
thetics is  suggested,  the  Science  of  the  Beautiful. 

More  especially,  what  is  known  as  Sublimity  is  also 
involved,  so  closely  connected  with  Beauty  that  we  think 
of  them  as  one,  and,  yet,  so  different  in  the  character 
and  occasions  of  its  expression  that  they  must  be  sepa- 
rately examined.  If  we  inquire  as  to  the  agencies  by 
which  Taste  may  be  cultivated,  the  answer  is  a  twofold 
one. 

First,  by  a  careful  study  of  the  laws  and  principles  of 


290  LITER  A  T  UBE 

Beauty  as  deduced  by  tlie  masters  of  the  art ;  secondly, 
by  a  close  and  sympathetic  study  of  Poetry  itself  as  seen 
in  the  world's  greatest  poems,  it  being  noteworthy  that 
Taste,  in  its  best  expression,  is  a  gift  of  nature  and  not 
a  product  of  the  schools.  It  is  an  expression  of  heredity, 
an  innate  faculty,  as  independent  in  its  origin  as  it  is  in 
its  manifestation.  If  it  be  further  asked.  How  it  embod- 
ies itself  in  general  literature  and  in  verse,  we  answer — 
in  unity  and  symmetry,  in  fitting  diction  and  structure, 
in  all  that  wide  variety  of  written  expression  that  passes 
under  the  name  of  Style.  It  appears  in  the  theme  of  the 
poem  and  its  unfolding,  in  its  adaptation  as  a  product  to 
the  occasion  that  evoked  it  and  the  purpose  it  contem- 
plates. Such  are  the  elements  of  Poetry — Thought, 
Imagination,  Feeling  and  Taste — each  essential  in  its 
place,  each  contributing  its  measure  to  the  final  product, 
and  the  action  of  each  involving,  in  a  sense,  that  of  all 
the  others.  Poetry  may  thus  be  defined — as.  The  Ex- 
pression of  Thought,  in  metrical  form,  through  the  Imag- 
ination, Feelings  and  Taste  as  media,  and  with  the 
primary  purpose  to  please.  Hence,  we  speak  correctly 
of  an  author's  Poetic  Personality,  of  his  Genius,  as  a 
poet.  It  is  the  content  or  sum  total  of  his  power,  that 
which  makes  him  what  he  is  as  a  man  and  a  man  of  let- 
ters. Herein  appear  the  High  Demands  of  Verse,  in 
that  it  brings  into  full  activity  the  whole  man,  in  the 
complete  compass  of  his  ability  as  an  originating  agent, 
a  maker  and  creator.  The  poets  are  thus  producers. 
Their  work  is  their  own.  It  is  here  that  Poetry,  so  often 
underrated,  rises  to  its  highest  plane,  allies  itself  to  all 
that  is  highest  and  best,  and,  when  conjoined  with  con- 
science and  character  and  beneficent  intent,  completes 
the  circle  of  the  arts. 


POETBY  291 

II.    THE   CHARACTERISTICS   OF  POETRY 

1.  The  first  of  these  is,  Scope.  It  must  have  outlook, 
and  iiplook,  latitude  and  longitude,  the  range  of  all  space 
and  time,  as  Dante  and  Milton  and  Shakespeare  had 
epical  reach  and  function,  dramatic  range.  It  must  have 
extension.  Lyric  Verse,  as  we  have  noticed,  runs  up  and 
down  the  gamut  of  human  life,  while  even  descriptive 
verse  embraces  all  that  is  natural  and  supernatural.  If 
Imagination  in  its  varied  offices  is  an  essential  faculty  in 
poetry,  this  is  the  same  as  saying  that  poetry  has  all  the 
immensities  and  infinities  for  its  field,  an  unimpeded  ap- 
proach to  all  being  and  all  truth,  the  right  of  way  across 
the  universe  of  all  known  existences  and  far  afield  into 
the  region  of  the  unknown.  Every  poet  of  high  endeavor 
must  attempt,  as  Milton  did,  '^an  adventurous  song" 
and  make  no  '^ middle  flight"  into  the  upper  air  of 
imaginative  soaring.  Poetry  in  its  original  idea  is  spa- 
cious and  supernal,  ignoring  at  will  the  local  and  the 
temporal,  scorning  the  imposition  of  any  limit  applicable 
to  other  forms  of  human  activity.  Heaven,  earth  and  hell 
are  conjoined.  The  past,  present  and  future  are  con- 
joined. All  distances  and  durations  are  eliminated. 
Poetry  must  have  an  open  road  through  earth  and  air 
and  sea  and  sky.  It  must  have  what  Emerson  calls  '  ^  at- 
mosphere and  amplitude."  It  is  here  that  the  principle 
of  freedom  enters  as  one  of  the  conceded  prerogatives  of 
the  poet,  an  absolute  liberty  of  action  under  the  well- 
defined  conditions  of  reason  and  literary  law,  a  license  as 
a  poet  and  because  he  is  a  poet  to  go  where  he  may  and 
do  as  he  may  quite  irrespective  of  the  canons  of  the 
schools  or  the  accepted  limits  of  prose  literature.  This 
is  not  to  say,  with  Macaulay,  that  such  freedom  may  take 
so  extreme  a  form  as  to  indicate  a  certain  unsoundness 


292  LITERATURE 

of  mind,  or  that  poetic  freedom  is  synonymous  with  the 
capricious  freaks  of  fancy  in  childhood  and  in  the  infancy 
of  a  semi-savage  people,  but  that  all  ordinary  barriers 
are  removed ;  all  technical  statute  outlawed ;  that  it  is 
understood,  the  literary  world  over,  that  the  poet  is  an 
author  at  large  with  special  concessions  and  franchises 
to  his  credit.  It  is  all  the  more  essential,  therefore,  that 
the  poet  in  the  substantive  character  of  his  mind  and  in 
his  views  of  literary  art  shall  be  a  sound  man,  conspicu- 
ous for  sanity  and  balance,  so  as  to  avoid  the  reducing  of 
law  to  license  or  abusing  a  privilege  freely  accorded  him. 
It  is  here  that  the  poets  may  be  classified  into  the  masters 
and  the  mere  imitators  ;  into  poets  and  poetasters  ;  into 
authors  to  whom  scope  may  be  safely  given  and  those 
into  whose  hands  it  is  perilous  to  entrust  it. 

2.  Ehythmic  Quality  is  a  second  feature.  "We  have 
already  noticed  the  fact  that  Poetry  must  have  subject- 
matter  as  well  as  form,  must  have  the  poetic  essence,  idea 
and  sentiment,  imagery  and  taste,  a  fundamental  poetic 
content.  We  may  advance  a  step  further  and  add  that  it 
must  have  an  inner  harmony  or  melody,  an  inner  move- 
ment or  measure  that  is  characteristic  of  poetry  as  such, 
clearly  discernible  by  the  poetic  eye,  a  something  that 
can  not  be  counterfeited  by  the  most  adroit  adventurer 
and  that  makes  the  lines  superior  by  its  presence.  The 
Thought,  Imagery,  Sentiment  and  Taste  must  be  rhyth- 
mic. The  American  poet  Poe  exalted  this  feature  to 
the  highest  level,  and  defined  Poetry  to  be — The  Rhyth- 
mical Expression  of  Beauty.  In  the  "Eaven-'  and 
"Bells"  he  illustrated  it.  Gummere,  in  his  "Begin- 
nings of  Poetry,"  thus  writes — "Poetry  is  rhythmic 
utterance — that  form  of  art  which  uses  rhythm  to  attain 


FOETBT  293 

its  ends."  It  is  a  vital  part  of  poetry,  without  which  it 
is  not  poetry  in  the  sense  in  which  the  masters  have  writ- 
ten it  and  interpreted  it.  An  American  critic,  in  writing 
of  Browning,  speaks  of  ''the  ebb  and  flow  "  of  his  verse. 
It  is  an  inner  tidal  movement  that  marks  the  composition 
as  poetic.  So,  the  elder  Schlegel  AVTites — ''Ehythm  is 
born  with  Poetry  and,  whether  by  the  Ontario  or  the 
Ganges,  where  Poetry  is  there  is  rhythm, "  ' '  that  uniform 
recurrence  of  syllables ' '  of  which  Shelley  speaks  in  his 
''  Defense  of  Poetry."  Ehythm  means  this  regularity  of 
movement,  the  recurrence  of  stress  at  regular  intervals, 
a  definite  succession  based  on  accent  and  j)roducing  by 
its  uniformity  special  poetic  effects.  This  is  ' '  the  essen- 
tial fact  of  Poetry, ' '  constituting  a  composition  poetic  by 
its  presence  and  in  proportion  to  its  presence,  its  utter 
absence  making  it  unpoetic.  Even  Prose  evinces,  at 
times,  enough  of  its  presence  to  make  it  deviate  from  the 
nominal  type  and  assume  the  name  of  Poetic  Prose,  a 
kind  of  semi-rhythmic  order  this  side  the  domain  of  poetry 
proper.  One  of  the  points  of  close  connection  between 
Poetry  and  Music  is  seen  here  in  that  each  is  essentially 
rhythmic,  tho  the  rhythm  is  present  in  each  in  different 
measure  and  manner.  Poetic  Masterpieces  may  be  tested 
here.  Have  they  this  internal  and  pervasive  rhythmic 
quality,  this  distinctive  movement  toward  poetic  form 
before  such  form  actually  assumes  visible  expression? 
The  exact  relation  of  this  inner  rhythm  to  that  external 
type  of  it  as  seen  in  Metre  or  Metrical  Structure  will  be 
noticed  in  the  sequel  when  we  examine  the  subject  of 
Poetics  as  connected  with  that  of  Poetry. 

III.  "We  may  now  inquire  as  to  the  Uses  and  Recom- 
penses of   Poetry,   its  offices,   immediate   and  remote. 


294  LITERATURE 

What  are  its  aims  and  functions  and  how  does  it  minister 
by  way  of  reward  and  practical  benefit  to  him  who  sur 
renders  himself  to  its  fullest  influences.  That  it  possesses 
any  useful  end  is  strictly  denied  by  those  un poetic  natures 
who  pass  through  life  upon  the  prose  side  of  it  only, 
Poetry  as  a  Fine  Art  is  disowned  by  them  and  it  is  the 
Useful  Arts  alone  that  appeal  to  their  judgment  and  in 
terest. 

1.  We  note,  as  the  first  Eecompense  of  Poetry,  that  it 
is  a  Eevealer,  an  Interpreter  of  Life  and  Nature,  of  the 
world  within  and  without,  in  their  relations  to  each 
other ;  entering,  often  where  no  other  agency  known  to 
man  has  access  and  audience,  bringing  to  light  the  things 
that  are  hidden.  Professor  Shairp  has  given  us  a  vol- 
ume on  ''The  Poetic  Interpretation  oi  Nature,"  apply- 
ing the  principle  in  one  of  its  provinces,  ' '  The  grand 
power  of  Poetry,"  says  Arnold,  ''is  its  interpretative 
power ' ' ;  that  power,  he  would  teach  us,  by  which  the 
poet  through  the  combined  activity  of  thought,  feeling, 
imagination  and  taste  can  see  deeper  and  farther  than 
the  ordinary  observer,  can  better  examine  and  unfold 
that  which  he  sees,  and,  for  the  first  time,  disclose  the 
real  man  to  himself.  We  see  it  in  any'  of  the  forms  that 
Poetry  may  assume — epic,  dramatic,  descriptive  and 
idyllic ;  at  times,  as  in  the  epic  and  descriptive,  inter- 
preting human  history  and  the  natural  world ;  and, 
again,  as  in  the  dramatic  and  lyric,  interpreting  the 
human  heart  at  its  deepest  depths  and  highest  aspira- 
tions. 

Chaucer,  Burns,  Thomson  and  Crabbe  and  such  out- 
of-door  naturalistic  bards  teach  us  one  set  of  truths  as 
suggested  by  the  endless  diversity  of  physical  phenom- 


I 


POETRY  295 

ena,  while  ^schylus,  Shakespeare,  Eacine  and  Schiller 
teach  us  another  class  of  truths  suggested  by  the  equally 
endless  diversity  of  mental  and  spiritual  phenomena.  It 
is  the  poet  who  has  this  vatic  and  prophetic  power,  this 
insight  and  outsight  developed  to  the  fullest,  so  that  he 
deals  at  first  hand  with  fundamental  facts  whether  inside 
or  outside  the  area  of  the  visible  and  material.  What 
an  interpreter  of  the  heart  the  poet  is  in  comedy  and 
tragedy,  as  he  depicts  the  manners  and  passions  of  men  ; 
their  faults  and  follies ;  their  disappointments  and  sor- 
rows ;  or  in  the  more  subdued  expressions  of  the  lyric 
dwells  upon  the  pastoral  simplicity  of  primitive  life ! 
The  poet  is  the  Seer.  His  work  is  penetrative  and  inter- 
penetrative, and  as  he  gives  us  in  fitting  form  the  results 
of  his  study  he  does  for  us  a  work  reserved  for  him  alone 
to  do. 

2.  A  further  recompense  is  seen  in  the  Elevating  and 
Kefining  Influence  of  Verse.  This  is  what  Longinus,  the 
Greek  Critic,  means  when,  in  his  treatise  ^ '  On  the  Sub- 
lime," he  dwells  upon  Elevation  of  Thought,  Feeling 
and  Expression  as  its  principle  element.  '^  Anything  is 
sublime,"  says  Euskin,  ^' which  elevates  the  mind." 
According  to  Kant,  ^'  it  is  the  attempt  to  express  the  in- 
finite in  the  finite."  This  is  the  sphere  in  which  the 
poet  by  his  vocation  and  preference  must  dwell ;  in 
which  he  must  do  his  noblest  and  most  lasting  work,  and 
when  out  of  which  he  descends  to  the  level  of  the  merest 
rhymester.  Poetry  is  the  language  of  the  ideal,  the  ex- 
pression of  that  which  finds  no  voice  through  the  ordi- 
nary channels  of  communication.  ''All  truth,"  says 
Devey,  ''  which  awakens  within  us  the  feeling  of  the  in- 
finite is  poetic."     When  the  poet  or  the  student  of 


296  LITEBATUEE 


(I 


poetry  surrenders  himself  to  this  divine  afflatus,  the  in- 
evitable result  is  mental  and  moral  uplift,  the  raising  of 
the  whole  man,  if  we  might  so  express  it,  to  the  ninth 
power,  to  an  upper  plane  of  outlook  and  experience 
where  there  is  no  horizon  visible  or  no  language  at  com- 
mand duly  to  express  the  ideas  that  are  dominant. 
Hence  it  is,  that  Moral  Sublimity  is  the  first  character- 
istic of  poetry,  and,  hence,  the  accepted  superiority  of 
the  epic  and  the  tragic  as  the  forms  that  best  embody 
and  reveal  it,  where  the  imagination  and  all  the  creative 
faculties  must  rise  to  their  best  endeavor,  and  the  poet, 
in  the  sum  total  of  his  power,  allies  himself  with  all  that 
is  supreme  and,  for  the  time,  at  least,  forgets  his  earthly 
origin. 

There  is  here,  also,  a  decided  Eefining  Influence,  a 
cleansing  and  sanative  effect,  as  the  true  poet  prosecutes  | 
with  '^high  seriousness"  his  chosen  work.      Aristotle  j 
speaks  of  this  in  reference  to  the  drama,  as  ^'purifying  i 
the  passions."     We  have  spoken  of  Taste  as  an  element 
of  Poetry.     This  is  simply  saying  that  it  involves  all 
that  properly  belongs  to  the  beautiful.     It  is,  preemi-  i 
nently,  the  artistic  order  of  composition,  involving  a 
sense  of  form  and  fitness  not    so    essential  to  prose. 
Poetry,  as  a  Fine  Art,  is  a  Eefining  Art,  giving  tone 
and  color  to  all  that  it  touches.     The  much  debated 
word,  culture,  means  this,  at  least,  that  it  ennobles  and 
purifies  the  possessor  of  it,  and  culture  is  vitally  included 
in  the  very  conception  of  poetry.     To  make  the  best 
poetry  popular,  interesting  to  the  average  reader,  is  a 
matter  of  no  little  difficulty,  in  that  the  uncultured 
classes,  so  called,  are  outside  the  sphere  of  literary  priv- 
ilege, and  must  be,  in  a  sense,  educated  beforehand  to 
appreciate  a  type  of  literary  product  that  is  specifically 


POETRY  297 

esthetic.     It  is  here,  also,  that  the  beneficent  function 
of  the  actor  and  the  stage  enters  to  popularize  through 
scenic  effect  and  the  oral  arts  dramatic  verse  as  a  written 
product,  and,  thus,  unwittingly  to  the  public,  to  refine 
the  general  taste  and  give  a  kind  of  note  of  dignity  to 
the  people  in  the  aggregate.     Here,  also,   lyric  verse, 
through  the  special  medium  of  the  song  and  ode,  se- 
cures, in  a  different  way,  the  same  popular  effect.     In 
noting,  thus,  these  special  effects  of  poetry,  a  question 
"ill  to  solve"  emerges,  as  to  the  presence  in  some  of  the 
greatest  poets  of  the  lower  and  coarser  type  of  mind — a 
type  so  signally  illustrated  in  the  Elizabethan  dramatists 
and  in  such  later  poets  as  Dryden  and  Byron  and  Shelley 
and  Goethe.     The  best  explanation  of  this  anomaly  is 
that  it  exists  in  spite  of  poetic  gift ;  that  human  nature 
has  ''the  defects  of  its  virtues"  ;  that  the  imagination, 
so  prominent  in  verse,  is  of  all  the  faculties,  the  least 
'.  amenable  to  law,  and  that  a  corrupt  court  or  a  corrupt 
;  public  taste  has  often  forced  a  poet  to  pander  to  its  be- 
hests or  suffer  for  lack  of  bread.     Nor  should  it  be  for- 
,  gotten  that  this  lower  type  finds  its  illustration  mainly 
,  in  the  second  and  third  orders  of  poets  and  not  among 
the  masters.     English   and    American  Letters  have  an 
,  enviable  record  here 

3.  Personal  Pleasure  is,  also,  a  recompense.  This,  by 
,many  critics,  is  made  the  final  aim  of  poetry  as  an  art. 
This  is  the  recreative  side  of  verse  to  the  poet  and  the 
.reader,  in  epic  and  drama  and  ode  and  song,  in  humor 
.and  satire  and  serious  refiection.  Poetry,  in  this  view 
-  of  it,  is  a  satisfaction,  ministering  to  us  when  we  stand 
I  in  need  of  comfort  and  cheer  and  hopeful  impulse.  So 
rjtrue  is  this  that  he  to  whom  high  poetry  makes  no  ap- 


298  LITEBATUBE 

peal  and  in  whom  it  meets  no  need  may  well  be  con- 
cerned as  to  the  constitution  of  his  nature.     Poetry  is  as 
old  as  man  himself  and  makes  appeal  to  his  deepest  in- 
stincts, to  savage  and  civilized,  to  old  and  young,   to 
lettered  and  unlettered  alike,  and,  presumably,  at  least, 
has  something  to  say  of  value  and  interest  to  every  man 
as  a  man.     Such  are  the  Elements,  Characteristics  and 
Uses  of  Poetry,  and  such  the  claims  which  it  has  upon 
every  lover  of  literature  and  all  who  are  interested  in 
general  culture.     A  suggestion  of  interest  arises  as  to 
what  is  called.  The  Poetic  Spirit.     Altho  presumably 
found  wherever  the  literary  character  is  found,  its  absence 
is  often  marked.    Some  authors  and  some  literary  peopleaf 
and  periods  are  signally  devoid  of  it,  authors  who  pur-l 
posely  or  by  necessity  confine  themselves  to  prose,  the' 
historians  and  essayists,  having  but  little  need  in  their 
didactic  work  for  imaginative  literature.     The  Eastern 
peoples  are  more  poetic  than  the  Western;  the  Southern, 
than  the  Northern.     In  Northern  Europe,  the  Scandi- 
navian races  are  more  poetic  than  the  Slavonic.     In  the 
Elizabethan  Age,  the  poetic  spirit  was  dominant;  in  the 
Augustan,  it  was  in  abeyance,   while  the  Victorian  is 
notable  for  its  presence  in  common  with  a  general  literary 
tone  and  taste.     "We  do  not  look  for  it  in  the  troublous 
days  of  the  Commonwealth,  nor  during  the  Thirty  Years' 
War  in  Germany,  nor  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century  in  France.     Present  in  all  the  great  imaginative 
prose  writers,  and,  especially,  the  novelists,  and  in  the 
great  exponents  of  descriptive  miscellany,  it  comes  to 
prominence,  at  times,  in   such   descriptive  authors  as 
Macaulay  and  Prescott  and  Guizot;  in  such  philosophic 
authors  as  Cousin  and  Descartes.      Even  in  Literary 
Criticism,  its  presence  is  revealed,  as  in  Saint  Beuve  and 


POETRY  299 

Lessiug.  The  literary  man  should  be  in  sympathy  as 
such  with  all  poetic  expression,  while  the  poet,  also, 
should  enlarge  his  vision  so  as  to  include  the  most  out- 
lying horizon  of  literary  endeavor. 

Literature,  broadly  interpreted,  is  a  general  term.  It 
does  not  stop  to  inquire  whether  its  product  is  in  verse 
or  prose,  but  only  whether  it  is  in  keeping  with  literary 
taste  and  the  highest  canons  of  the  art  of  expression. 


CHAPTEE  SEVEN 

POETICS 

We  have  already  discussed  Poetry  in  its  essential  con- 
tent and  characteristics,  its  internal  quality  and  subject- 
matter,  as  the  mental  product  of  the  poet.  We  are  now 
brought  in  logical  order  to  the  examination  of  poetry  in 
its  external,  visible  form  upon  the  page,  to  the  technique 
of  poetry.  It  might  be  called,  the  more  literary  side  of 
poetry  as  distinct  from  the  intellectual  side,  its  strictljS 
architectural  feature.  At  the  outset  of  the  discussion  ill 
is  to  be  noticed  that,  in  poetry  as  contrasted  with  prosej 
Form  is  an  indispensable  characteristic.  Tho  impor- 
tant in  all  literary  work,  in  poetry  it  is  essential,  so  that 
no  such  product  as  poetry  can  exist  without  it.  Accord- 
ing to  the  Greek  etymology  of  the  term,  the  poet  is  a 
maker,  or,  in  the  more  expressive  Old  English,  a  shaper, 
this  formative  process  being  a  necessary  one.  There 
must  be  the  molding  and  arranging  of  the  poetic  material 
at  hand  into  proper  form  for  the  final  purpose  of  poetry, 
as  designed  to  gratify  taste  and  minister  to  pleasure. 
Hence,  when  we  call  it  a  Fine  Art,  we  emphasize  the 
word,  art,  in  that  poetry  must  have  this  excellence  of 
technique,  as  a  statue  or  a  painting  or  an  attractive 
building  is  supposed  to  have  it.  A  poem  to  be  such 
must  have  structural  beauty,  must  have  unity,  symmetry 
grace  and  finish — in  a  word,  style.  The  Component 
parts  of  Poetic  Structure  may  be  said  to  be  three: 

I.  Verbal    Structure — the    vocabulary   of   the    poet. 

There  is  such  an  order  of  diction  as  the  poetic,  included, 

300 


[ 
i 


POETICS  301 

of  course,  in  tlie  general  diction  of  authors,  but  having 
its  own  type.  It  is  what  might  be  called,  the  linguistic 
side  of  poetry,  and  must  be  taken  into  account  by  the 
author,  the  reader,  and  the  critic  of  verse.  Some  of 
the  chief  features  of  Poetic  Diction  may  be  examined. 

1.  It  is  first  of  all,  Figurative,  known  under  varied 
names,  as  symbolic,  pictorial,  descriptive  or  graphic,  an 
order  of  diction  largely  induced  by  the  presence  of  the 
imagination  in  poetry,  in  conjunction  with  the  elements 
of  taste  and  beauty.  Hence,  all  writers  on  Poetics  in- 
clude a  full  discussion  of  Figures,  this  tropical  vocabu- 
lary being  necessitated  by  the  fact  that  in  poetry  we  are 
outside  the  region  of  the  literal  and  ordinary  and  must 
seek  a  diction  appropriate  thereto.  It  is  thus  that  Addi- 
son, in  The  Spectator,  discusses  Words  under  the  caption 
of  the  Imagination.  They  are  the  imaging  agents. 
"When  Fenelon  tells  us,  in  speaking  of  French,  that  de- 
picting is  one  of  the  leading  offices  of  style,  it  is  the 
poetic  style  that  is  meant,  where  Word- Painting,  the 
portraiture  of  thought,  is  essential.  Poetic  Diction  is 
photographic.  When  Aristotle  says,  'Hhat  beauty  of 
words  consists  in  the  image  they  present,"  he  is  refer- 
ring, primarily,  to  poetic  beauty  on  the  side  of  symbol- 
ism, the  symbol  or  picture  making  the  word  that  con- 
tains it  beautiful.  This  is  the  explanation  of  the  fitness 
of  Suggestive  Words  in  poetry,  meaning  more  than  they 
state,  leaving  something  for  the  imagination  to  discover 
and  enjoy.  "The  marvel  of  Shakespeare's  diction," 
says  Whipple,  '  ^  is  its  immense  suggestiveness,  his  power 
of  radiating  through  single  expressions  a  life  and  mean- 
ing which  they  do  not  retain  in  their  removal  to  diction- 
aries."    In  a  word,  the  critic  would  say,  Shakespeare's 


302  LITERATURE 

diction  is  poetic  because  of  its  suggestiveuess.  It  inti- 
mates much  that  is  not  and  can  not  be  literally  embodied 
on  the  page.  This  is  the  explanation,  also,  of  the 
frequent  presence  in  poetry,  especially  in  its  earlier  eras 
and  forms,  of  the  Etymological  Uses  of  words,  in  that  in 
the  root  of  the  word  the  symbol  is  found  which  consti- 
tutes the  word  poetic.  This  is  the  exx^lanation  of  the 
Poetry  and  Poetic  Prose  of  the  Old  Testament,  the 
Hebrew  in  its  alphabetic  characters  being  simply  a  series 
of  pictures  treasured  up  in  words.  It  should  also  be 
emphasized  here  that  Figurative  Language  is  more 
adapted  to  some  orders  of  verse  than  others — to  the 
dramatic  and  the  descriptive  more  than  to  the  epic  and 
the  lyric.  What  is  known  as  Romantic  or  Naturalistic 
Verse  abounds  in  the  simple  imagery  of  the  woods,  the 
streams  and  the  fields. 

2.  An  Antique  Diction  is  poetic,  ^ot  that  this  is  a 
prevailing  type  of  the  vocabulary  of  verse,  but  that  it  is 
a  valid  and  an  allowable  part  of  it — its  antiquity  being 
an  element  of  its  beauty,  as  is  true  in  painting  and  archi- 
tecture, even  where  the  more  modern  word  might  be 
clearer  to  the  average  reader.  In  these  earlier  words 
there  are  often  found  those  elements  of  suggestiveuess 
and  etymological  metaphor  to  which  we  have  referred. 
Hence,  the  revival  of  old  words  and  the  uses  of  these  in 
novel  senses,  by  which  a  certain  attractive  quaintness  is 
given  to  the  style,  so  as  to  awaken  at  once  the  curiosity 
and  interest  of  the  student.  It  will  not  be  misinterpreted 
when  it  is  said  that  there  is  a  kind  of  obscurity  permis- 
sible in  poetry,  a  partial  and  purposely  half- concealed 
revelation  of  meaning  in  order  to  stimulate  the  fancy  and 
quicken  all  the  poetic  instincts  and  faculties.     In  such  a 


POETICS  303 

use  of  the  older  terms,  moreover,  Poetry  seems  to  come 
nearer  to  its  sources  in  the  earliest  eras  of  history  ;  when 
men  were  but  children  of  a  larger  growth  ;  when  civili- 
zation, if  it  could  be  so  called,  was  unconventional,  and 
the  language  of  the  bard  was  the  language  of  the  heart, 
a  natural  utterance,  unaffected  by  current  criticism. 
Just  here,  in  so  far  as  our  vernacular  poetry  is  concerned, 
is  seen  the  literary  importance  of  Old  and  Middle  Eng- 
lish, of  Alfred  and  Chaucer,  the  Old  Style  of  Elizabethan 
Days,  so  happily  revived  by  Tennyson,  not  only  in  the 
distinctive  Old  English  poem,  '^The  Northern  Farmer," 
but  in  his  poetry  as  a  whole.  The  ' '  Idylls  of  the  King ' ' 
signally  evinces  it.  Hence,  the  importance  of  Native 
Words,  in  that  they  preserve  the  character  and  flavor  of 
the  olden  time,  and  impart  to  the  diction  a  something 
that  can  not  be  counterfeited  or  imj) roved.  It  gives  tone 
and  dignity,  a  sort  of  aristocratic  note  to  the  verse  that 
marks  it  as  eminently  English.  So,  in  the  German, 
Scandinavian  and  South  European  languages,  the  same 
principle  prevails,  the  old  ballads  and  folk-songs  of  these 
people  finding  much  of  their  charm  in  their  age  and  con- 
sequent appeal  to  the  poetic  imagination.  The  increas- 
ing interest  in  Dialect  or  Provincial  Poetry  is  largely 
due  to  the  fact  that  this  dialectic  diction  is  antique  and 
peculiarly  impressive.  Just  because  it  is  a  variation 
from  the  standard  language,  it  at  once  elicits  interest  and 
study.  English  Poetry  is  especially  rich  in  this  depart- 
ment of  local  verse,  while  the  old  Castilian  and  Provencal 
songs  of  Southern  Europe,  as  those  of  the  great  Teutonic 
nations,  exemplify  the  same  unusual  law. 

II.  A  second  expression  of  Structure  is  found  in  The 
Sentence  as  distinct  from  the  separate  word.     It  is  the 


304  LITEBATUEE 

arrangement  or  adjustment  of  words,  their  proper  plac- 
ing. This  is  Structure  Proper,  or,  in  different  phrase, 
the  Textual  as  distinct  from  the  Verbal  Structure.  There 
is  such  a  thing  as  Poetic  Sentence  Structure,  having  its 
own  character  and  credentials  and  easily  discernible 
wherever  expressed  in  appropriate  form.  It  includes 
the  grammatical  and  all  that  is  meant  by  the  syntactical 
in  language,  correct  construction,  the  right  word  in  the 
right  place,  what  the  earlier  writers  called.  Propriety. 
It  is  the  Syntax  of  Poetry.  Of  the  Characteristics  of 
Poetic  Structure  as  Textual,  the  most  important  and,  in 
a  sense,  all  inclusive,  is  Flexibility  or  Variety,  not  that 
there  is  no  standard  of  sentence  arrangement,  as  in  prose, 
but  that,  under  the  principle  of  poetic  license,  there  is  an 
allowable  liberty  in  departing  from  it.  Thus  it  is  that 
we  find  in  the  best  poetry  of  all  nations  an  almost  end- 
less variety  of  clause  and  phrase  and  paragraph  ;  inver- 
sion and  transition,  gradual  and  abrupt;  frequent  antithe- 
sis and  paraphrase  ;  sentences  reduced  to  the  limit  of 
the  laconic  and  expanded  to  the  limit  of  enlargement. 
Circumlocution  is  expected  in  poetry,  so  that  the  reader 
is  disappointed  when  not  finding  it.  If  we  speak  of  a 
Poetic  Period,  the  very  word  means,  a  Circuit.  As  Bacon 
would  state  it,  we  reach  our  purpose  by  indirection,  and 
not,  as  in  Prose,  as  the  word  Prose  means,  by  directness. 
Even  redundancy  is  not  always  an  error  here,  as  in  Eu- 
phemism and  similar  constructions.  Pleasure  is  one  of 
the  purposes  of  Poetry  and,  to  secure  this,  exceptional 
methods  are  in  vogue.  Here  and  there,  standard  poets 
have  violated  this  principle  by  pushing  their  liberty  into 
lawlessness,  right  athwart  the  accepted  canons  of  syntax. 
Robert  Browning  is  in  error  here,  and  not  infrequently  ; 
an  error  from  which  Tennyson  is  signally  free.    Old  Eng- 


POETICS  305 

lish  Poetry  is  marked  by  this  apparant  Irregularity,  so 
as  to  impair  tlie  essential  nature  of  the  verse.  This  is 
partly  due,  indeed,  to  the  mutilated  manuscripts  of  the 
older  verse,  but,  also,  due,  in  part,  to  the  limitations  of 
the  poets  themselves.  Here  is  a  test  of  the  master  and 
the  poetic  masterpiece  in  that  variety  will  be  present 
without  unrestrained  diffuseness ;  flexibility  without 
abruptness  ;  paraphrase  without  unmeaning  digression  ; 
the  use  and  not  the  abuse  of  privilege.  Two  such  poets 
as  Longfellow  and  Whitman  will  evince  the  difference 
between  poetic  freedom  and  mere  poetic  caprice. 

III.  The  third  expression  which  Structure  may  assume 
is.  The  Metrical,  as  distinct  from  the  Verbal  and  Textual. 
So  important  is  it  in  relation  to  the  subject  before  us  that 
it  has  often  been  regarded  as  synonymous  with  it.  Poetics 
being  thus  differentiated  from  Prose.  As  we  have  seen. 
Poetry  must  have  Content  and  Form.  By  Poetic  Form, 
Metrical  Structure  is  meant.  A  clear  understanding  of 
the  terms  here  involved  is  first  in  order. 

The  word,  Verse,  as  used  to  express  what  we  mean  by 
Poetry,  expresses  this  distinctively  metrical  view  of  it. 
The  word.  Verse,  however,  as  synonymous  with  Stanza, 
meaning,  etymologically,  the  turning  of  the  line  at  the 
close  of  it  to  begin  another,  is  the  more  correct  use  of  it. 
The  word  applied  to  poetry  as  metrical  has,  however, 
become  permanently  current.  Hence,  the  word.  Versifi- 
cation, the  making  of  verse,  is  used  to  mean,  the  external 
construction  of  the  poem,  on  artistic  principles,  its  body 
or  technique.  It  involves,  thus,  the  theory  of  verse,  the 
study  of  those  scientific  laws  which  have  generally  ob- 
tained among  poets  when  embodying  their  poetic  con- 
ceptions in  written  form.    Versification,  therefore,  is  the 


306  LITEBATUEE 

arrangement  of  words  and  syllables  on  the  basis  of  quan- 
tity or  accent ;  the  first  order,  the  syllabic,  existing  in 
classical  poetry,  and  the  second,  or  accentual,  in  modern 
literatures,  as  the  English.  It  is  what  De  Quiucey  would 
call,  the  Mechanism  of  poetry  as  distinct  from  its  Organ- 
ism, It  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  quality  of  the  poetry 
as  good  or  bad,  but  simply  with  its  mechanism  as  a 
question  of  feet  and  syllables,  of  line  and  stanza,  of  accent 
and  quantity. 

Ehythm,  is  another  essential  word,  one  which  we  have 
already  found  in  the  content  of  poetry  before  it  comes  to 
external  expression.  The  point  of  interest  lies  in  this 
fact  of  the  presence  of  rhythm  both  in  the  subject-matter 
and  form.  Poetry  must  have  rhythmic  quality,  an  in- 
ward poetic  movement  or  impulse,  and  it  must,  also, 
have  rhythmic  structure,  an  outer  movement  correspond- 
ent to  that  within  and  based  upon  it.  The  one  de- 
mands the  other.  Ehythm  is  thus  the  arrangement  of 
syllables  with  reference  to  sound.  It  is  based  on  accent 
and  implies  an  easy  and  a  pleasant  succession  of  sounds, 
occurring  at  regular  intervals,  the  regularity  of  the  re- 
currence being  itself  rhythmic.  It  is  a  wider  term  than 
Meter  or  Ehyme,  and  passes,  at  times,  beyond  the  limits 
of  poetry  into  the  province  of  prose. 

The  word,  Meter,  tho,  at  times,  used  as  synonymous 
with  Ehythm,  is  to  be  carefully  distinguished  from  it. 
In  its  Greek  origin,  the  word  means,  a  measurement, 
and  signifies  the  measuring  of  the  verse.  It  is  the  mark- 
ing off  of  the  rhythmic  movement  in  sections,  longer  or 
shorter ;  the  arrangement  of  rhythmical  language  in 
lines  that  correspond  with  one  another.  Meter  is  meas- 
ured Ehythm,  the  particular  name  of  the  Meter  varying, 
according  to  the  length  of  the  line — Mouometer,  Dimeter, 


P0ETIC8  307 

aud  so  on.  From  the  days  of  Sidney,  a  somewhat  strange 
discussion  has  obtained  as  to  whether  Meter  is  essential 
to  Verse,  its  strictly  external  type  making  it  appear,  in 
the  eyes  of  some  critics,  as  a  mere  adjunct  of  verse,  to  be 
accepted  or  rejected  at  pleasure.  Thus  Sidney  himself 
and  Shelley  and  Johnson  and  Coleridge  contended.  Suf- 
fice it  to  say,  that  the  great  majority  of  the  great  critics 
of  verse,  as  well  as  of  literary  students  at  large,  regard 
meter  as  an  essential  in  poetic  construction,  as  rhythm  is 
to  poetic  content ;  that  in  poetry  the  rhythm  must  be 
measured  or  metrically  adjusted.  No  aggregation  of 
theories,  it  is  held,  can  controvert  the  fact  established 
by  Aristotle  and  others,  that  just  as  soon  as  the  written 
language  is  constructed  on  the  principle  of  accent  or 
quantity,  of  stress  and  time  and  relation  of  feet  and  syl- 
lables, the  structure  becomes  thereby  metrical  as  well  as 
rhythmical,  becomes  that  which,  for  want  of  a  better 
term,  we  call,  Poetry.  Hence,  no  production  that  is 
unmetrical,  in  the  sense  explained,  can  be  poetry.  It 
may  be  poetical ;  it  is  not  poetry  proper. 

Rhyme  refers,  simply,  to  the  similarity  of  vowel  sounds 
and,  generally,  at  the  end  of  the  lines.  This  is  final  as 
distinct  from  sectional  rhyme.  Etymologically,  the  word 
means,  a  counting  of  the  syllables.  It  is  not  essential  to 
poetry  as  Meter  is.  Hence,  Blank  Verse  is  a  kind  of 
middle  ground  between  prose  and  poetry,  the  preference 
of  the  masters  of  verse  for  this  rhymeless  meter  being 
clearly  seen  in  the  great  epics  and  dramas  of  literature. 
In  the  study  of  poetry  on  its  structural  side,  other  and 
less  important  terms  are  found,  as  Alliteration,  a  simi- 
larity of  initial  letters;  Assonance,  a  similarity  of  vowel 
sounds  in  the  middle  of  the  line;  Foot,  the  unit  of  meas- 
urement ;  Cadence,  Harmony,  Melody,  Elision  and  Eu- 


308  LITERATURE 

phony,  all  having  mainly  to  do  with  poetry  on  the  side 
of  Versification.  Such  is  the  Technique  of  Poetry,  as 
Schipper,  Ten  Brink  and  others  have  discussed  it.  It  is 
what  Poe  has  called,  The  Rationale  of  Verse,  and  Lanier, 
The  Science  of  Verse.  It  is  the  framework  or  scaffold- 
ing of  poetry  and,  yet,  a  something  more,  in  that  its 
absence  makes  the  product  non-poetic.  We  might 
change  the  figure  and  say  that  as  language  is  the  incar- 
nation of  thought,  versification  is  the  incarnation  of 
verse,  its  body  and  its  indispensable  form  tho  not  its 
essential  being,  a  something,  therefore,  which  the  stu- 
dent of  literature  must  examine,  if  he  is  to  compass 
the  province  of  poetry.  Moreover,  so  delicate  and  in- 
visible is  the  dividing  line  which  separates  the  subject- 
matter  from  the  external  expression  of  it,  and  so  essential 
is  it  that  this  dividing  line,  as  narrow  as  it  is,  should  be 
so  maintained  and  not  arbitrarily  enlarged  that  the 
student  of  Poetry  should  be,  thereby,  a  student  of  Poet- 
ics, as  he,  in  turn,  must  study  Poetry  in  its  essential 
content.  Hence,  we  are  led  by  our  discussion  thus  far 
of  the  Content  and  the  Structure  of  Poetry  to  note  that 
these  two  are  and  ever  should  be  inseparable — so  con- 
ceived and  so  applied  by  the  author  as  a  poet  and  by 
the  critic.  This  combination  is  happily  effected,  in  part, 
by  the  fact  already  stated,  that  Ehythm  is  found  alike  in 
the  subject-matter  and  the  form,  and,  in  part,  by  the 
personality  of  the  poet  who,  in  his  poetic  work,  proceeds 
upon  the  assumption  of  their  unity  and  acknowledges  no 
abruptly  dividing  line  between  them.  It  is  the  Poetic 
Spirit  that  mediates  between  the  two  and  secures  their 
cooperation  and  practical  fusion.  The  poet,  in  the  zeal 
of  poetic  composition,  never  stops  to  inquire  as  to  the 
precise  relation  between  the  inner  and  the  outer;  as  to 


I 


POETICS  309 

which,  if  either,  is  the  more  important,  but  silmpy  orig- 
inatiug  and  arranging  in  one  and  the  same  personal  ac- 
tivity, being  as  every  author  should  be,  the  thinker  and 
the  artist  in  one.  A  signal  confirmation  of  the  correct- 
ness of  this  riew  is  found  in  the  fact  that  poets  may  be 
classified  at  this  point  as  primary  and  secondary.  The 
examples  of  great  poets  who  are  great  in  violation  of  this 
law  of  unity  between  the  internal  and  the  external  are 
so  rare  as  to  constitute  an  exception.  In  English  and 
American  Verse,  this  unity  is  singularly  observed.  Brown- 
ing and  Emerson  with  all  their  errors  scarcely  trans- 
gressing enough  to  invalidate  the  principle.  In  a  recent 
book  on  ''The  Principles  of  Criticism,"  by  Worsfold,  of 
Oxford,  we  read:  ''Genius  is  a  quick  and  an  unerring 
perception  of  the  just  proportion  in  which  the  form 
and  the  thought  ought  to  be  united.  This  union  is  the 
perfection  of  art,"  and,  he  adds,  "on  these  terms  the 
masterpieces  are  produced."  If  this  is  true  in  general 
literature,  it  is  signally  so  in  poetry,  where  the  con- 
ditions are  more  delicately  adjusted  and  where  the  neglect 
or  violation  of  literary  statute  is  attended  with  greater 
evils.  It  is  in  this  connection  that  we  read,  and  properly, 
so  much  of  late  as  to  the  way  in  which  different  poets 
have  illustrated  in  their  verse  the  various  Meters  open 
to  authors — whether  they  have  used  them  in  consonance 
with  the  thought  beneath  the  structure  and  supposed  to 
give  it  character  and  influence,  or  whether  simply  as 
verse-builders,  on  the  architectural  side,  they  have  been 
artists  first  and  poets  afterward. 

No  English  author  has  met  with  higher  eulogy  at  this 
point  than  Milton,  whose  versification  has  always  com- 
manded the  interest  of  critics  and  is  in  itself  a  literary 
study.     "Milton's  diction  is  called  poetic,"  writes  Ea- 


310  LITEBATUEE 

leigh,  ^^ because  it  was  absolutely  fitted  to  his  purpose," 
and  his  purpose,  we  may  add,  was  so  to  select  and  de- 
velop his  Meters  as  to  make  them  the  natural  vehicle  for 
the  expression  of  his  poetic  ideas.  When  he  decided  to 
embody  '■ '  Paradise  Lost ' '  in  Blank  Verse,  he  did  so  con- 
trary to  the  custom  of  all  non-dramatic  poets  of  any  note 
preceding  him,  the  rhyming  couplet  of  Chaucer  and  the 
nine-line  rhyming  stanza  of  Spenser  being  the  accepted 
models.  Even  in  the  drama,  critics  were  questioning 
the  propriety  of  Blank  Verse,  so  acute  a  critic  as  Dryden 
later  contending  that  while  it  might  be  allowable  in 
Comedy,  the  rhyming  couplet  was  better  in  Tragedy. 
Milton  adopted  Blank  Verse,  therefore,  for  his  Epics  just 
as  he  adopted  the  Couplet  for  his  Lyrics,  only  because  he 
deemed  these  measures  best  adapted  to  the  respective 
purposes  of  narrative  and  idyllic  verse  and  that  neither 
would  have  done  in  the  place  of  the  other.  So,  in  the 
composition  of  '^Comus,"  which  is,  in  part,  lyric  and,  in 
part,  dramatic,  he  uses  both  types  of  Meter  with  equal 
skill  and  felicity,  as  the  interests  and  ideas  of  the  poem 
respectively  demanded  them.  Moreover,  in  the  varia- 
tion of  feet  and  line  and  stress  and  pause,  he  always  re- 
veals the  hand  of  a  master  bent  on  adjusting  the  structure 
to  the  sense,  so  that  tho  using,  theoretically,  the  Iambic 
foot  as  the  prevailing  one  and  best  suited  to  Heroic  Eng- 
lish Verse,  he  never  hesitates,  when  the  sense  and  the 
melody  demand  it,  to  use  other  primary  feet,  the  dactyl, 
anapest  and  trochee,  and  even  such  secondary  feet  as  the 
Spondee,  the  Pyrrhic  and  Amphibrach,  this  deviation, 
as  Symonds  says,  "constituting  the  beauty  of  Blank 
Verse."  It  is  for  this  reason,  among  others,  that  the  first 
book  of  "  Paradise  Lost"  has  been  said  to  be  ''the  most 
perfect  production  of  metrical  art ' '  and  the  praise  might 


p 

^  P0ETIC8  311 

be  extended  to  the  epic  as  a  whole.  If  we  pass  to  his 
shorter  poems,  this  deviation  of  form  to  suit  the  sense 
assumes  still  wider  illustration  so  as  to  secure,  at  the 
same  time,  verbal  and  mental  melody.  His  poetic  style 
has  thus  been  called  '^ a  close- wrought  mosaic,"  so  nicely 
fitted  is  the  word  to  the  idea.  So,  Keats,  Longfellow, 
Schiller  and  Eacine  adapted  their  Meters.  Here  it  is, 
once  again,  that  the  discussion  as  to  Shakespeare  arises 
and  we  are  plausibly  told  that  he  had  poetic  genius  but 
no  artistic  sense  ;  that  he  wrote  his  Sonnets  and  Plays 
with  an  eye  on  the  subject-matter  only,  with  but  little  or 
no  regard  to  structural  method  and  effect.  Professor 
Moulton,  in  his  volume  entitled  ^'Shakespeare  as  a 
\  Dramatic  Artist, ' '  writes  in  his  Preface,  and  as  stating 
I  the  occasion  of  the  book:  ''  An  impression  is  not  uncom- 
i[  monly  to  be  found,  especially  among  English  readers, 
i  that  Shakespeare's  greatness  lies  mainly  in  his  deep 
ij  knowledge  of  human  nature,  while,  as  to  technicalities 
(,  of  dramatic  art,  he  is  at  once  careless  of  them  and  too 
great  to  need  them. ' '  To  this  allegation  the  volume  in 
question  is  a  sufficient  answer,  while  the  ever  increasing 
study  of  these  marvelous  dramas  but  serves  to  confirm 
the  conclusion  that  it  was  just  because  of  his  consummate 
poetic  genius  that  the  thought  and  the  form  are  found  in 
such  fusion.  Hence  it  is,  that  what  are  known  as  Schools 
of  Poetry,  representing  different  poetic  theories,  are  but 
the  different  ways  in  which  poets  and  critics  represent 
Poetry  and  Poetics  as  related.  Wordsworth,  in  the  Pref- 
ace to  his  ' '  Lyrical  Ballads, ' '  gives  us  his  Theory  of 
Verse.  When  examined,  it  is  found  so  to  subordinate 
the  technique  of  the  verse  in  order  to  express  common 
life  in  common  language  that  he  may  be  said  to  come 
dangerously  near  to  robbing  Poetiy  of  much  of  its  artis- 


312  LITEBATUBE  , 

tic  merit.  So,  we  speak  of  Whitman's  Theory  of  Poetry, 
which  we  find  to  be  but  another  name  for  Prose,  so  defi- 
cient is  it  in  that  technique  which  is  of  right  expected  in 
all  genuine  poetic  expression.  Thus  the  Alexandrine 
Poets  represent  in  Keats  and  Shelley  the  emphasis  of  the 
esthetic  side  of  Poetics.  So,  the  Art  School  of  Tennyson, 
while  the  Eealistic  School  of  Crabbe  and  Browning  gives 
the  emphasis  to  Poetry.  So,  the  Poets  of  the  Affections 
magnify  the  content  of  verse.  Such  a  poet  as  Lowell 
may  be  said  to  carry  the  esthetic  principle  to  the  extreme 
of  academic,  conventional  verse.  It  is,  in  fact,  only  the 
poetic  genius  who  is  best  endowed  to  unify  the  matter 
and  the  form  and  thus  escape  each  extreme — that  of  the 
unduly  artistic  and  the  unduly  didactic.  Every  great 
literature  has  had  its  Eomantic  and  Classical  School  of 
Verse,  and  it  is  in  these  respective  types  that  these  ex- 
tremes are  apt  to  be  found.  Especially  is  it  true  of  the 
classical  poets,  the  poets  of  correctness  and  style,  that 
they  are  exposed  to  special  peril  in  the  emphasis  of  the 
formal  at  the  expense  of  the  natural.  'Twas  so  with 
Pope,  and,  later,  with  Matthew  Arnold,  these  poets  not 
always  succeeding  in  concealing  their  hands  as  mere  art- 
ists in  the  province  of  poetic  language.  The  secondary 
poets  of  literature  are  largely  such  because  they  have 
neither  original  genius  enough  nor  artistic  taste  enough 
to  exemplify  them  in  their  literary  unity  and  kinship. 
There  is  such  a  province,  therefore,  as  Poetics  within  the 
wider  province  of  Poetry.  Poetic  Ideas  are  not  Poetry 
till  reduced  to  the  terms  of  written,  metrical  expression, 
nor  is  the  mere  arrangement  of  words  in  a  certain  rhyth- 
mical order  Poetry  till  such  words  are  seen  to  be  the  em- 
bodiment of  poetic  thought.  They  are  the  masters  who 
best  understand  and  exemplify  these  literary  relations. 


i 


POETICS  313 

SUGGESTIONS 

From,  the  foregoing  discussion  we  note  as  follows: 
First,  as  to  the  Eelations  of  Poetry,  both  in  material 
and  structure,  to  Esthetics,  or  the  Science  of  the  Beauti- 
ful. The  Study  of  Poetry,  as  Matthew  Arnold  uses  the 
phrase,  touches,  it  is  conceded,  the  subject  of  Esthetics. 
As  to  just  how  it  does  so,  is  the  open  question,  the  cur- 
rent and  even  critical  opinion  being  that  it  touches  it  on 
the  side  of  Poetics  only,  that  of  external  form,  beauty  of 
diction  and  sentence  and  metrical  composition,  beauty  of 
presentation  or  representation.  It  is  at  this  point,  there- 
fore, that  the  question  must  be  decided.  If  Esthetics,  as 
the  Science  of  Beauty,  is  such  on  the  understanding  that 
Beauty  is  mere  external  ornateness  quite  independent  of 
the  character  of  the  subject-matter  and  is  an  end  in  it- 
self, then  the  current  view  has  the  evidence  in  its  favor. 
If,  however,  as  some  of  the  great  estheticians  teach  us, 
such  as  Plato,  Cousin,  Lessing,  De  Quincey,  Euskin  and 
Herder,  Beauty  is  a  quality  as  well  as  a  manifestation,  a 
something  inherent  and  indestructible  as  well  as  outward 
and  transient,  then  the  current  view  needs  modification 
and  Poetry  and  Esthetics  touch  each  other  subjectively. 
The  view  taken  by  Kant  is,  thus,  correct,  that  as  Beauty 
pertains  both  to  the  content  and  structure.  Esthetics 
touches  Poetry  in  each  of  these  sections,  the  structure 
itself  taking  its  character  from  the  poetic  content  beneath 
it.  Immense  harm  has  been  done  in  the  name  of  Esthet- 
ics and  by  the  unduly  free  use  of  celebrated  names  in 
criticism  by  interpreting  the  science  suiDcrficially  and 
then  by  necessity  connecting  it  with  Poetry  on  the  side 
of  Poetics  only.  Baumgarten,  by  whom  the  name 
Esthetics  was  first  given  to  the  Science  in  1750,  is  ad- 

I 


314  LITERATURE 


1 


duced  in  confirmation.  The  controversy  is  as  old 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  the  more  superficial  view  of  Aristotle 
being  given  the  precedence,  until  the  very  name  Estheti- 
cism  must  needs  be  explained  and  defended  lest  it  be 
accepted  without  debate  as  indicative  of  formal  embel- 
lishment only.  We  are  now  dealing  with  Poetry  in  its 
most  comprehensive  sense,  and  in  this  sense  but  one 
opinion  can  be  held,  and  that  is  that  Poetry  is  related  to 
Esthetics  vitally  and  internally  as  Poetry  proper  and, 
also,  structurally  and  externally  as  Poetics,  no  attempt? 
being  made  to  draw  an  arbitrary  line  between  them,  as, 
indeed,  no  such  dividing  line  exists.  The  English  critic 
Burke  effaced  all  such  distinctions,  as  he  held  that  Mat- 
ter itself  is  beautiful.  Even  on  the  esthetic  side,  there- 
fore, the  poem  must  be  essentially  poetic.  A  second 
Suggestion  arises — As  to  the  Desirability  of  Poetic  Com- 
position and  Criticism  as  a  literary  exercise.  The  refer- 
ence here  is  not  to  the  custom  in  the  English  Schools  of 
translating  classical  verse  into  English,  partly,  for  the 
classical  and,  partly,  for  the  English  instruction  and 
purely  for  educational  ends.  There  is,  indeed,  some 
benefit  in  this  by  way  of  comparing  native  and  foreign 
meters,  or  contrasting  the  accentual  and  the  syllabic 
methods  of  versification,  but  the  exercise  is  so  strictly 
perfunctory  and  pedagogic  that  it  loses,  thereby,  a  large 
part  of  its  value  and  is,  in  a  valid  sense,  totally  foreign 
to  the  idea  of  Poetry  as  involving  freedom  and  scope  and 
voluntary  action.  Our  reference,  here,  is  to  the  free  and 
spontaneous  function  of  the  student  for  purely  poetic 
and  literary  purposes,  quite  independent  of  any  such 
thing  as  linguistic  examination  of  poetic  diction  and 
structure  or  the  exercise  of  the  art  of  versifying  as  a 
praxis  only,  beginning  and  ending  in  theory.     We  are 


j  POETICS  315 

emphasizing  tlie  production  of  poetry  by  the  amateur  to 

test  any  poetic  ability  that  he  may  possess  and  to  develop 

it  to  fuller  function,  the  composition  of  verse  on  the  side 

i   of  poetic  content  as  well  as  on  that  of  formal  correctness. 

Moreover,  it  is  important  to  note  that  we  are  to  place  the 

,  emphasis  upon  the  content;  bringing  thought  and  imag- 

{•  ination  and  feeling  and  taste  to  bear  in  their  combined 

I,  activity,  and  as  expressed  in  the  sphere  of  rhythmical 

and  metrical  product.     Thus  interpreted,  Poetic  Praxis 

j:  is  to  be  encouraged,  nor  are  the  benefits  far  to  find.     It 

,  serves  experimentally  to  prove  just  what  Poetry  is  as 

!  distinct  from  Prose  and  just  where  and  how  they  ap- 

-  proach  and  touch  each  other;  it  disciplines  the  taste  and 

-  all  the  esthetic  sensibilities;  develops  poetic  conception 
I  as  distinct  from  general  mental  conception;  disciplines 
r  the  poetic  spirit  and  the  poetic  imagination ;  elevates  and 

refines  the  whole  intellectual  nature  and  reveals  to  the 
I  student  in  his  work  his  merits  and  defects  in  poetic  com- 
5  position  and  construction.      The  accepted  theory  that 
f  literary  effort  on  the  part  of  any  outside  the  circle  of 
3  accredited  poets  should  be  confined  to  prose  production, 
is  as  unwarranted  as  it  is  prevalent  and  should  be  dis- 
carded.    So,  as  to  Poetic  Criticism  as  a  literary  exercise, 
a  delicate  and  difficult  field  indeed,  and,  yet,  there  is  no 
a  law  by  which  such  territory  should  be  a  high-walled  en- 
D  closure,  accessible  only  to  the  specially  initiated.     The 
!j  critical  examination,  on  the  part  of  an  advancing  student, 
fy  of  a  poem  or  a  body  of  verse  to  discover  its  governing 
1  features,  its  conformity  or  non-conformity  to  established 
{  poetic  principles,  if  properly  conceived  and  conducted, 
I  can  have  but  one  result  and  that  a  helpful  one.     There 
;  is  a  commendable  poetic  criticism  that  is  purely  experi 
mental. 


316  LITEBATUBE 

A  final  suggestion  emerges,  As  to  the  Poetic  Outlook. 
Is  it  promising?  Mr,  Courthope  inclines  to  a  hopeful 
view.  Matthew  Arnold  tells  us,  ''The  future  of  Poetry- 
is  immense" — immense,  he  seems  to  mean,  as  a  possibil- 
ity. He  felt  that  Poetry  has  in  it  an  enormous  potenti- 
ality, if  it  only  can  be  evoked  and  applied.  Just  here 
the  question  hinges,  Can  this  ''immense  future"  be 
realized  in  Modern  Europe  %  Is  it  now  realizing  in  any 
substantive  sense  as  the  new  century  opens,  and  the  great 
masters  of  verse  are  in  their  graves  %  The  answer  opens 
a  spacious  region  of  inquiry,  philosophic  and  social  as 
well  as  literary,  in  that  Poetry  is  now  viewed  as  related 
to  all  other  great  departments  of  human  effort  and  to  the 
life  of  the  world  at  large.  When  we  ask  the  apparently 
simple  question — Is  the  immediate  Future  of  Poetry 
promising  ?  a  score  of  related  questions  must  first  be  set- 
tled. "What  is  the  existing  political  and  social  status  of 
Europe  ?  Is  it  friendly  to  the  poetic  spirit  and  to  the 
poet  as  a  man  ?  "What  is  the  dominant  philosophy  and 
how  does  it  affect  the  poet  *?  What  is  the  type  of  the 
age  on  its  merely  material  side  and  is  it  provocative  or 
repressive  of  poetic  effort  %  What  is  the  general  literary 
type  of  the  time  and  is  it  auxiliary  to  verse?  Is  the 
spirit  of  the  old  masters  still  controlling  or  is  it  weakened 
by  alien  influences?  In  fine,  the  answer  is  conditioned 
by  place  and  time,  by  mental  and  social  environment, 
by  tendencies  and  movements,  as  literary  and  unliterary. 
On  the  contrary,  perchance  the  mysterious  law  of  Pe- 
riodicity may  be  verified  and  Poetry  come  round,  once 
again,  by  regular  recurrence,  after  an  era  of  depression, 
to  supremacy  and  all  the  critics  be  silenced. 

Suffice  it  to  say,  that,  as  we  survey  the  outlook,  the 
"immense  future  "  of  Poetry  is  a  distant  future  and  not 


POETICS  317 

immediate.  He  must  have  special  gifts  of  vision  and 
prophecy  who  can  see  far  enough  along  the  line  of  devel- 
oping history  to  cheer  our  hearts  by  the  valid  promise  of 
anything  like  a  genuine  poetic  revival.  Possibly,  the 
near  future  may  reveal  a  decided  advance  in  one  direc- 
tion— in  a  revival  of  poetic  genius  or  of  poetic  art.  ' '  De- 
ficiency of  construction,"  according  to  Arnold,  '4s  a 
characteristic  of  contemporary  poetry"  due,  as  he 
thinks,  ''to  the  absorption  of  the  age  in  scientific  pur- 
suits." At  another  time,  he  tells  us,  that  the  present 
age  is  one  in  which  any  great  manifestation  of  poetic 
genius  is  not  to  be  rejected,  it  being  an  age  of  "industrial 
development  and  social  amelioration  only  and  not  one  of 
moral  grandeur."  Of  the  two  orders  "the  famous  men 
of  geuius"  and  "the  famous  men  of  ability"  he  sees  no 
promise  of  the  first,  tho,  even  as  he  was  writing  this,  the 
superb  development  of  Victorian  Verse  was  at  hand.  So 
may  it  be  again.  ' '  For  one,  I  believe, ' '  writes  Stedman, 
"that  the  best  age  of  imaginative  production  is  not  past; 
that  poetry  is  to  retain,  as  of  old,  its  literary  import  and 
from  time  to  time  to  prove  itself  a  force  in  national  life." 
As  Emerson  says  :  "Sooner  or  later  that  which  is  now 
life  shall  be  Poetry,  and  every  fair  and  manly  trait  shall 
add  a  richer  strain  to  the  song."  This  optimism  is,  at 
least,  our  privilege.  In  the  sphere  of  Letters,  it  may, 
indeed,  be  our  duty. 


CHAPTER    EIGHT 
PROSE   FICTION,  AS  A   FORM   OF  LITERATURE 

Whenever  any  literary  product  assumes  the  popular 
prominence  that  is  now  held  and  has,  for  the  last  decade, 
been  held  by  what  is  known  as  Prose  Fiction,  it  becomes 
a  matter  of  obligation  as  well  as  of  interest  on  the  part  of 
students  of  letters  to  investigate  the  causes  of  such  a  wide- 
spread currency.  As  Crawford,  the  eminent  American 
novelist  expresses  it,  ' '  Of  making  novels  there  is  no  end, 
in  these  times  of  latter-day  literature, ' '  and  he  gives  a 
sufficient  reason  for  such  production,  when  he  adds  ^Hhat 
there  is  a  demand  for  them  and  a  profit  in  producing 
them."  Mr.  Crawford  is  himself  a  notable  illustration 
of  the  truth  of  these  statements,  both  as  to  the  continu- 
ous production  of  novels  and  the  pecuniary  profit  result- 
ing therefrom.  Be  the  cause  as  it  may.  Fiction,  in  one 
form  or  another,  is  the  existing  dominant  literary  type, 
more  prevalent  than  any  form  of  verse,  and  more  so  than 
such  pojDular  forms  of  prose  as  history,  biography,  and 
the  higher  miscellany.  It  is  the  literary  staple  of  the 
modern  reading  public.  In  submitting  it,  therefore,  as  a 
form  to  analysis  and  study,  we  notice,  first,  its  Origin 
and  Development.  This  we  shall  find  to  be  both  Nat- 
ural and  Historical,  a  matter  of  innate,  inevitable  ten- 
dency and  a  matter  of  gradual  sequence  along  the  lines 
of  general  development.  When  Dunlop,  in  his  ^ '  History 
of  Fiction,"  tells  us  'Hhat  the  art  of  fictitious  narrative 
appears  to  have  its  origin  in  the  same  principle  of  selec- 
tion by  which  the  fine  arts  in  general  are  created  and 

318 


PROSE  FICTION  319 

perfected, ' '  lie  means  to  say  substantially  that  it  has  its 
origin  in  the  nature  of  things,  in  obedience  to  the  laws 
of  the  human  mind  and  the  XDrimitive  constitution  of 
human  society,  and  such  we  find  to  be  the  case.  As  far 
back  as  we  go  in  the  recorded  facts  of  history,  we  find 
some  phase  and  measure  of  its  presence.  We  find  it  in- 
deed in  the  prehistoric  periods  of  legend  and  tradition 
where  we  are  wont  to  look  for  the  crude  beginnings  of 
other  forms  of  literature,  such  as  epic  and  dramatic  verse 
and  the  simplest  types  of  narrative  and  descriptive  prose. 
When  we  are  told  by  Crawford  "that  the  novel  is  a  dis- 
tinctly modern  invention,  satisfying  a  modern  want,  not 
finding  it  in  existence  till  late  in  the  last  century,"  his 
reference  is  to  the  fully  developed  novel  of  the  nineteenth 
century  in  its  ultimate  artistic  and  literary  form,  and  it 
in  no  sense  contradicts  the  assertion  as  to  its  early  his- 
toric and  prehistoric  beginning.  If  literature,  properly 
interpreted,  is  a  portraiture  or  expression  of  life,  there  is 
no  type  of  it  more  characteristic  of  this  function  than 
Fiction,  so  that  it  may  be  said  to  begin  when  the  life  of 
the  race  begins,  with  all  its  multiform  phases  of  experi- 
ence awaiting  the  pen  of  the  narrator. 

So  there  is  a  sense  in  which  its  rise  and  growth  may 
be  said  to  be  Historical,  following  what  is  called,  Social 
Development,  a  chronological  course  in  keeping  with  the 
Progress  of  Civilization,  its  expressions  at  different  pe- 
riods being  characterized  by  the  respective  conditions  of 
particular  eras  and  peoples.  In  this  sense,  we  have  a 
History  of  Fiction,  the  record  of  its  accredited  beginning 
and  its  diversified  development.  In  the  favorite  phrase 
of  the  day,  we  have  the  Evolution  of  the  novel,  in  the 
successive  stages  of  its  literary  growth.  Hence,  we  speak 
of  Ancient  and  Modern  Fiction  ;  of  Oriental  and  West- 


320  LITEBATUBE 

ern  Fiction  ;  of  Continental  and  Britisli  Fiction,  the  clas- 
sification being  mainly  historical,  with  but  incidental  ref- 
erence to  the  rise  of  Fiction  as  natural,  or  to  its  quality 
as  superior  or  inferior. 

If  now  we  descend  to  particulars  and  inquire  as  to  the 
exact  historical  origin  of  Fiction,  its  day  and  date  and 
first  exponents,  we  find  that  ax)proximate  results  must 
suffice.  Whether  first  existent  in  Scandinavia,  Arabia, 
Brittany,  Greece  or  Eome ;  in  prose  or  verse  \  prior  to 
the  Middle  Ages  or  not  till  then,  and  whether  first  as 
Eomance  or  Fable,  as  song  or  story,  these  are  questions 
beyond  the  province  of  exact  solution.  As  Saintsbury 
states  it,  ' '  The  exact  times  and  seasons  of  literary  births 
no  man  knoweth,  at  any  rate,  the  first  appearance  of 
full-blown,  full-fledged  Eomance. ' '  He  goes  on  to  show 
the  folly  of  those  oversagacious  students  who  are  sure 
that  they  have  shown  that  Eomance  is  of  Teutonic  or 
Celtic  origin,  and  that  its  beginnings  belong  to  this  or 
that  century  of  the  Christian  Era.  Accepting,  then,  the 
principle  of  comj)arative  results,  it  is  of  interest  to  state, 
that  the  Eise  of  Fictitious  Literature,  historically  viewed, 
is  probably  in  the  Medieval  Era,  and,  more  specifically, 
in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries ;  that  its  four 
great  Cycles  are  those  of  Arthur  and  Charlemagne,  and 
the  Greek  and  the  Eoman,  as  expressed,  respectively,  in 
the  Book  of  Alexander  the  Great  and  the  Book  of  Troy ; 
that  the  medium  of  its  expression  is  both  prose  and 
verse,  the  poetic  form  being  the  older ;  that  its  early 
authorship  is  mainly  anonymous,  and  that  the  French 
were  especially  prominent  in  its  production  and  diffu- 
sion. These  are  conclusions  of  approximate  certainty, 
and  aflbrd  a  fairly  substantial  basis  on  which  something 
like   an  intelligent  study   of  Fiction  may  be  pursued. 


PROSE  FICTION  321 

The  more  specific  question  of  the  exact  Historical  Gene- 
sis and  Growth  of  the  English  Novel,  were  it  in  place  to 
examine  it  here,  is  full  of  literary  interest,  and  well 
within  the  region  of  safe  historical  inquiry.  The  recent 
researches  of  Jusserand  and  Raleigh  and  others  have 
thrown  increasing  light  on  this  attractive  subject  and 
have  done  much  to  elucidate  the  general  question  as  to 
the  origin  of  Fiction.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  the  work  of 
Malory,  author  of  L'MorteD' Arthur,  1470  ;"  of  Caxton, 
the  first  English  printer  and  the  editor  of  Malory's  treat- 
ise in  1485,  and  the  work  of  Lord  Berners,  the  translator 
of  Froissart,  marks  the  beginning  of  English  Fiction,  as 
these  respective  writers  gave  to  the  Arthurian  and  Char- 
lemagne traditions  their  first  embodiment  in  English 
Prose.  The  literary  type  thus  established  found  later 
expression  in  the  Elizabethan  Age  in  Lyly's  ^'Euphues" 
and  Sidney's  ''Arcadia,"  as  in  the  various  translations 
of  Italian  Eomances.  After  some  transitional  work,  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  especially  in  the  line  of  epic 
romance,  the  Modern  English  Novel  Proper  took  form, 
in  the  opening  years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in  the 
graphic  delineations  of  De  Foe,  followed  by  Eichardson 
and  Fielding  and  Smollett  and  Sterne  and  Sheridan  on 
to  the  days  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  and  that  superb  succes- 
sion of  English  novelists  that  from  that  day  to  this  has 
represented  English  Literature  and  may  be  said  favor- 
ably to  compare  with  any  succession  of  romance  writers 
which  any  European  Literature  adduces. 

The  inquiry  now  in  order  has  reference  to  the  Charac- 
teristics of  Fiction. 

1.  To  this,  it  may  be  answered  that  Fiction  is  primarily 
Idealistic.     Whatever  it  is  or  is  not,  it  is,  as  the  word 


322  LITEEATTJBE 

signifies,  a  something  feigned  or  invented,  a  something 
supposed  for  the  time  to  be  and  thus  described  as  a  pres- 
ent entity.  It  would  not  be  aside  from  truth  to  say,  that 
Fiction  is  Ideality  reduced  to  verbal  form.  Hence,  the 
functions  of  Fancy  and  Imagination  in  the  conception 
and  production  of  fiction  whereby  the  novelist  makes  his 
own  world,  irrespective  of  all  actual  existences  ;  peoples 
it  as  it  pleases  him,  and  in  Shakespearean  phrase  ' '  bodies 
forth  the  forms  of  things  unknown,  and  gives  to  airy 
nothing  a  local  habitation  and  a  name."  Hence,  the 
various  terms  that  are  used  as  synonymous  with  Fiction, 
all  of  them  indicative  of  that  which  is  feigned  or  imag- 
ined. Such  are  fable,  allegory,  apologue,  legend,  myth 
and  romance,  by  the  use  of  which  terms  the  primary 
quality  and  purpose  of  all  fictitious  literature  is  seen. 

2.  There  is,  however,  an  element  of  Reality  in  Fiction. 
This  visible  and  practical  side  of  Prose  Fiction  is,  at 
present,  more  emi^hasized  than  ever.  Hence,  the  two- 
fold classification  of  Fiction  as  Idealistic  and  Eealistic. 
The  division  of  all  fiction  into  Eomances  and  Novels 
Proper  is  due  to  the  same  literary  theory,  the  Eomance 
being  the  more  idealistic  as  the  product  of  the  Fancy, 
and  the  latter,  the  more  realistic  as  the  product  of  the 
creative  imagination,  illustrated,  respectively,  in  such 
works  as  '^Don  Quixote"  and  the  ''Arcadia,"  ''Henry 
Esmond"  and  Bulwer's  "Pompeii."  What  is  called, 
The  Tale  or  Story,  occupies  a  kind  of  Borderland  with 
special  tendency  toward  the  more  fanciful  form,  as  the 
Tales  of  Poe  and  Stevenson.  If  we  turn  to  one  of  our 
latest  English  lexicons,  we  read  as  to  the  Novel — "A 
Prose  Work  in  narrative  form  in  which  the  incidents, 
characters  and  scenes  are  partly  or  wholly  imagined." 


PB08E  FICTION  323 

Hence,  the  original  conception  of  Fiction  as  wholly 
feigned  must  be  somewhat  modified  in  obedience  to  later 
criticism  and,  in  fact,  to  the  demands  of  literary  law,  so  as 
to  state  that  it  is  the  union  of  the  Idealistic  and  Eealistic 
in  verbal  form  ;  the  union  of  fact  and  foucy,  the  imagi- 
native element  being,  however,  the  dominant  and  deter- 
mining one.  The  reversal  of  this  relation  would  produce 
an  order  of  literature  which,  whatever  it  might  be,  would 
not  properly  belong  to  the  category  of  fiction. 

3.  A  further  Feature  of  Fiction  is  seen  in  the  fact  that 
Pleasure  is  its  primary  object.  '^No  one  denies,"  writes 
Crawford,  ''that  the  first  object  of  the  novel  is  to  amuse 
and  interest  the  reader,"  and  he  uses  the  word  novel  in 
its  widest  sense  as  embracing  all  forms  of  fictitious  writ- 
ing, whether  romantic  or  realistic.  He  calls  it  a  "  lux- 
urjr^"  tho  "an  intellectual  and  artistic  luxury,"  .  .  . 
"not  contributing  directly,"  as  he  says,  "to  the  sup- 
port of  life  or  the  maintenance  of  health, ' '  but  rather,  as 
he  would  intimate,  to  the  general  entertainment  of  the 
reader,  in  those  hours  of  comparative  leisure  when  be  is 
off  regularly  assigned  duty  and  seeking  mere  enjoyment. 
The  novel  must  amuse,  but  must  amuse  us  "reasonably." 
In  this  respect.  Fiction,  tho  strangely  called,  Prose  Fic- 
tion, is  closely  allied  to  poetry  as  a  literary  form,  each 
of  them  seeking  mental  and  artistic  pleasure  as  the  con- 
trolling end.  ' '  Novelists  are  nothing  more, ' '  adds  Craw- 
ford, ' '  than  public  amusers ' '  whose  sole  business  is  to 
cater  to  the  public  taste,  follow  the  rapidly  changing 
phases  of  public  sentiment,  take  the  people  into  their 
confidence,  and  give  to  them  when  they  open  their  pages 
precisely  what  they  have  a  right  to  expect  at  the  hands 
of  those  who  have  made  a  special  study  of  the  art  of 


324  LITEBATTJBE 

pleasing.  So  current  is  this  theory  that  any  other  con- 
ception is  regarded  as  literary  heresy,  and  the  offering  of 
any  other  kind  of  product  a  gross  violation  of  the  as- 
sumed contract  between  author  and  reader.  Hence,  the 
important  question  here  arises — Has  Fiction  any  other 
end  than  Pleasure  ?  Into  the  discussion  of  this  vexed 
question  Modern  Criticism  has  entered  with  a  good  de- 
gree of  warmth,  nor  is  the  temper  yet  abated.  Critics 
such  as  Howells  and  Stedman  stoutly  contend  that  there 
is  no  room  either  in  the  Eomance  or  Novel  for  didactic- 
ism in  any  form,  much  less  for  anything  at  all  of  the 
nature  of  ethical  or  educational  sentiment;  that  ^'the 
novel  of  purpose,"  so  called,  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
On  the  other  hand,  such  critics  as  Selkirk  and  Thompson 
and  Devey  and  Masson  are  as  earnest  in  maintaining  that, 
the  primary  end  of  fiction  being  pleasure,  there  is  no 
good  reason  why  some  form  of  instructive  appeal  should 
not  be  made  a  secondary  end,  nor  is  there  any  reason,  it 
is  urged,  why  the  novelist  should  ever  be  on  his  guard  lest 
he  inculcate  some  wholesome  moral  lesson  and  make  the 
reader  better  as  well  as  wiser  by  his  teaching.  They  in- 
sist that  the  other  forms  of  literature  should  not  have  the 
monopoly  of  educational  value, — '^In  art  of  all  kinds," 
says  Crawford,  '■ '  the  moral  lesson  is  a  mistake, ' '  while 
in  the  special  art  of  novel- writing  he  would  make  such  a 
lesson-giving  doubly  offensive,  yet,  it  is  Mr.  Crawford 
himself  who  in  the  same  treatise,  tells  us,  unwittingly, 
perhaps,  ^  *  that  the  foundation  of  good  fiction  and  good 
poetry  seems  to  be  ethic  rather  than  esthetic.  Every- 
thing in  ethics  which  appeals  to  the  taste  may  ultimately 
perish,  but  that  which  speaks  to  man  as  man  must  live 
and  have  a  hearing  with  humanity  so  long  as  humanity 
is  human."     This  is  the  same  as  saying  that,  in  the  last 


PROSE  FICTION  325 

analysis,  Fiction  and  Poetry,  in  order  to  be  effective  and 
vital,  must  do  what  all  other  literary  products  that  aim 
at  durable  influence  must  do — address  the  primary  human 
convictions  and  minister  to  the  primary  needs  ;  must,  in 
fine,  address  the  Will  and  Reason  and  Conscience  as  well 
as  the  Taste  or  the  mere  passion  for  pleasure.  On  this 
higher  theory,  there  need  be,  as  we  think,  no  irrecon- 
cilable difference  of  view  between  contending  schools,  it 
being  understood  that  the  best  fiction,  while  primarily 
produced  for  literary  pleasure,  is  and  should  be  inciden- 
tally wholesome  and  educating,  these  factors  being  so 
concealed  that  their  influence  may  be  felt  rather  than 
seen.  This  is,  indeed,  the  true  theory  of  all  art,  and, 
while  maintaining  Fiction  in  its  proper  province  as 
mainly  ministrant  to  human  interest,  also  insists  that 
such  interest  rightfully  excludes  all  that  appeals  to  the 
lowest  and  basest  human  instincts.  Tho  the  novelist 
is  not  a  preacher,  he  is  a  teacher  of  truth  and  human 
life,  and  as  such  responsible  for  the  ultimate  ends  he  is 
seeking. 

The  question  now  arises  as  to  the  various  Types  which 
Fiction  may  assume.  These  are  found  to  be  of  marked 
diversity  and  compass,  thereby  indicating  a  high  degree 
of  vitality  and  flexibility,  such  diversity  being  at  present 
more  marked  than  at  any  preceding  period  of  modern 
literary  criticism.  Attention  has  already  been  called  to 
the  fact  that  Fiction  may  assume  idealistic  and  realistic 
type,  as  seen  in  Romance  and  Novel.  These  may,  how- 
ever, assume  many  subordinate  forms  as  seen  in  Histor- 
ical, Descriptive,  Philosophic  and  Sentimental  Fiction. 
In  Historical  Fiction,  we  have  the  bcvst  illustration  of 
that  union  of  reality  and  ideality  on  which  we  have  in- 
sisted, the  fact,  however,  being  for  the  sake  of  the  fiction 


326  LITERATURE 

and  thus  differentiating  the  novel  from  history  proper, 
Scott,  Cooper,  Bulwer,  James  and  Kingsley  are  pertinent 
examples  of  this  order.  "It  is  doubtful, ' '  writes  Craw- 
ford, ''whether  any  genuine  historical  novel  has  ever 
yet  been  written  for  the  sake  of  the  history  it  contained." 
He  regrets  the  fact  that,  despite  this  principle,  not  a  few 
readers  insist  on  learning  French  History  from  Alexan- 
der Dumas  and  Victor  Hugo,  and  British  History  from 
Scott  and  Bulwer.  Historical  Fiction  is  thus  realistic 
and  by  reason  of  this  element  it  is  all  the  more  difficult 
for  the  novelist  to  execute  it  with  skill.  Descriptive 
Fiction,  as  the  name  implies,  because  it  is  graphic  and 
pictorial,  may  be  said  to  be  the  leading  type.  It  is,  also, 
the  most  common  form,  the  Novel  of  Life  and  Manners, 
its  primary  purpose  being  to  give  a  vivid  and  truthful 
picture  of  men  and  things.  It  is  the  picturesque  or 
scenic  form,  in  which  delineation  or  word-painting  is  an 
essential  factor. 

What  is  known  as  the  Domestic  Novel,  the  simple 
portraiture  of  the  daily  life  of  the  home  and  village,  is 
of  this  scenic  character,  having  just  enough  of  the  histor- 
ical to  give  it  credibility.  Jane  Austen's  Novels  are  of 
this  order,  as  is  Macdonald's  ''Annals  of  a  Quiet  Neigh- 
borhood." Hence,  this  is  the  poetic  form,  one  in  which 
the  great  novelists,  Thackeray,  Hawthorne,  Dickens  and 
Eeade  have  done  their  notable  work,  a  form  in  which 
romance  and  reality  happily  combine  to  the  production 
of  the  best  literary  effect. 

Philosophic  Fiction  is,  in  a  sense,  a  contradiction, 
being  too  thoughtful,  too  intellectual  to  meet  the  condi- 
tions of  successful  fiction.  Its  groundwork,  however,  is 
imaginative.  In  its  symbolic  dress  it  has  the  features  of 
fictitious  literature  and  is  developed  on  pictorial  lines. 


\  FEOSE  FICTION  327 

Of  all  tlie  forms,  however,  it  is  the  least  imaginative, 
and  borders  most  closely  on  ordinary  prose.  By  reason 
of  its  solidity  and  serious  interest,  it  often  starts  the 
question  as  to  whether  the  final  purpose  of  fiction  is, 
after  all,  that  of  pleasure.  The  Psychological  Novel  is 
here  included.  Manifestly,  it  is  the  most  difficult  to 
produce  and  to  enjoy,  while  it  is  not  strange  to  note  that 
this  is  the  form  which  of  late  has  assumed  so  significantly 
the  specifically  religious  character,  as  seen,  especially,  in 
the  work  of  George  Eliot  and  George  Meredith.  Eelig- 
ious  Romance,  it  is  true,  may  be  expressed,  as  by  Bun- 
yau,  in  the  simj)lest  verbal  forms,  but,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  is  generally  expressed  in  connection  with  theological 
and  ethical  questions,  in  a  somewhat  dispassionate  and 
reflective  form.  This  kind  of  novel  is  not  frequent  in 
literature,  as  it  requires  a  high  order  of  mind  to  produce 
it,  and  the  protest  we  are  now  hearing  against  it  will 
lead  to  its  more  decided  diminution.  It  is  sometimes 
called,  the  Novel  of  Philosophic  Eealism,  as  seen  in  Mrs. 
Ward.  It  is  noteworthy  that  this  distinct  philosophic 
tendency  of  the  novel  is  but  another  evidence  of  the  fact 
that,  despite  all  the  theories  of  the  schools,  as  to  the  ab- 
solute divorce  of  fiction  from  the  educational  element, 
such  an  element  has  perforce  entered  and  will  always  to 
some  extent  exist.  This  modern  meditative  novel  is 
largely  the  product  of  female  authors  whose  nature  and 
ideals,  it  would  seem,  would  lead  them  into  regions 
wholly  idealistic. 

Sentimental  Fiction  has  two  distinct  types,  the  higher 
and  lower.  The  one  is  Sensuous;  the  other.  Sensual. 
They  are  alike,  however,  in  their  common  emphasis  of 
the  impassioned  element.  Here,  again,  the  romantic  and 
the  realistic  meet  and  blend,  the  higher  type  of  the 


328  LITERATURE 

Sentimental  Fiction  being  generally  expressed  in  the 
form  of  Eomance  and  tlie  lower  in  that  of  Eealism.  The 
modern  Experimental  Novel  of  Zola  and  Tolstoi  is,  thus, 
realistic,  portraying  in  a  defiant  and,  often,  revolting 
manner,  the  innermost  nature  of  man.  So  pronounced 
is  this  form  that  it  has  usurped  the  title.  Sentimental, 
and  makes  it  all  the  more  important  to  insist  on  the  two 
species  and  to  show  that  sentiment  may  be  pure  and 
sweet,  as  in  Maclaren's  ^'Kate  Carnegie,"  and  Con- 
nor's ^^Sky  Pilot"  and  '^ Black  Eock." 

In  addition  to  these  leading  forms  of  fiction,  various 
other  types  are  seen,  such  as  Political  Eomance,  as 
More's  ^'Utopia"  and  Disraeli's  "Lothair";  Pastoral 
Eomance,  as  Sidney's  "Arcadia";  the  Epic  Eomance 
of  the  seventeenth  century  in  France  and  England,  and 
the  Chansons  de  Geste  of  Northern  and  Central  Europe. 
So,  we  have  Fairy  Tales  and  Fabliaux:  Novels  of  Satire 
and  Humor,  as  in  Eabelais  and  Cervantes,  and,  last  of 
all,  the  Dialect  Novel,  as  seen  in  Barrie  and  Caine  and 
Cable  and  Harte,  concerning  which  the  important  ques- 
tion is  raised,  whether  it  really  conforms  to  the  conditions 
of  Fiction,  as  general  and  not  local,  as  a  popular  and  not 
a  technical  type  of  literature.  Despite  the  critics,  how- 
ever, it  has  made  its  place  and  holds  it  with  success. 
The  Eelation  of  Fiction  to  other  Literary  Forms  is  a 
question  of  standing  interest.  What,  in  particular,  is 
its  Eelation  to  Poetry.  As  a  matter  of  fact.  Fiction  has 
been  expressed  both  in  prose  and  verse,  the  early  Celtic 
Eomances  being  characteristically  prose  as  the  early 
Norman  and  English  Eomances  were  verse,  much  of  the 
work  of  the  early  translators  consisting  in  rendering 
these  Eomances  out  of  one  form  into  the  other.  Thus, 
we  have  the  famous  Metrical  Eomances  of  French  and 


PBOSE  FICTION  329 

Anglo-Norman  origin,  such  as  Chaucer's  '^  Eoman  de  la 
Eose,"  Layamon's  ''Brut,"  ''Sir  Tristram,"  and  "Sir 
Havelok, ' '  and  the  almost  limitless  list  of  medieval  ex- 
amples, classical  and  British.  Such  critics  as  Minto  and 
Moir  assign  Fiction  to  Poetry.  So  Masson  classifies  it 
with  poetry,  as  "containing  matter  of  imagination." 
The  majority  of  critics,  however,  assign  it  to  Prose,  as 
being  presented  in  unmetrical  form.  History,  however, 
may  repeat  itself,  and  romance,  as  of  old,  be  given  in  the 
form  of  verse.  Whatever  the  relation.  Fiction  has  a 
decided  dramatic  element,  especially,  on  its  descriptive 
side.  Here,  again,  it  manifests  its  poetic  tendency  and 
spirit  and  inclines  to  poetic  form.  "A  novel,"  writes 
Crawford,  "is,  after  all,  a  play."  The  best  answer  to 
the  question.  What  is  a  Novel  ?  he  adds  ' '  is  that  it  is 
a  pocket-stage,"  a  novel  being  excellent  according  to  the 
degree  in  which  it  produces  the  illusion  of  a  good  play. 
The  modern  dramatization  of  the  novel  is  proof  in  point 
of  this  relation,  a  tendency  rapidly  increasing  tho  partly 
induced  by  pecuniary  profit.  The  close  relation  of  the 
Novel  to  the  Epic,  as  seen  in  Historical  Fiction,  is,  at 
once,  apparent,  while  Narrative  and  Descriptive  Prose 
may  be  said  to  be  the  accepted  media  in  which  Fiction 
best  embodies  and  expresses  itself.  From  the  discussion 
thus  presented,  some  suggestions  arise — and  we  inquire, 
first.  As  to  the  Essentials  of  Success  in  the  production  of 
Fiction.  The  most  important  is  Imagination,  sufficient 
in  its  scope  and  vigor  to  meet  the  conditions  of  such  an 
order  of  authorship.  We  are  now  using  the  term  Imag- 
ination, as  the  faculty  of  imagining,  of  presentation  and 
re-presentation,  as  the  symbolic  function  of  man's  mental 
nature,  possessed  of  high  creative  power,  of  a  specific 
constructive  agency,  plastic  and  pictorial,  that  organ  of 


330  LITEBATUBE 

the  miud  by  which  it  communicates  with  the  invisible 
world  of  spirit  and  makes  it  real  and  visible.  It  is, 
eminentlj^,  the  faculty  of  idealization  and  of  realization, 
''the  eye  of  the  soul  glancing  from  heaven  to  earth  and 
earth  to  heaven,"  including  within  the  spacious  sweep 
of  its  observation  all  worlds  and  all  orders  of  beings.  It 
is,  also,  the  faculty  of  combination;  presenting  in  ever 
varied  forms  the  manifold  objects  of  human  knowledge. 
It  is  the  picturing  power  of  the  mind,  ever  engaged  in 
the  formation  of  mental  images  and  the  reproduction  of 
images  lying  latent  in  the  soul.  It  is  thus  closely  allied 
to  memory  and  to  the  vital  law  of  mental  association. 
Something  of  the  area  of  its  action  may  be  seen  when  we 
note  the  variety  of  forms  and  functions  it  may  assume,  as 
creative  or  artistic;  as  historical  or  scientific;  touching 
in  its  action  the  confines  of  all  departments  of  knowledge 
and  all  types  of  mental  and  moral  being.  Distinct  from 
the  other  powers  of  the  mind,  it  stands  in  vital  relation 
to  them  all,  affecting  them  and  affected  by  them,  and 
subject  for  its  cultivation  to  the  same  great  laws  and 
agencies.  This  is  the  faculty  which,  first  and  last,  is 
essential  to  the  Novelist,  seen  in  its  reproductive  func- 
tion, in  Historical  Fiction;  in  its  pictorial  function,  in 
Descriptive  Fiction;  in  its  constructive  and  reflective 
function,  in  Philosophic  Fiction;  seen,  indeed,  wherever 
symbolism  and  fantasy  enter  in  any  appreciative  meas- 
ure. It  might  be  called,  the  Faculty  of  Characteriza- 
tion, assuming  its  more  intellectual  form  in  the  JS'ovel 
Proper,  and  its  higher  form  in  the  Eomance.  It  is  here 
also  that  Fiction  and  the  Drama  are  seen  to  be  related, 
in  that  characterization  is  fundamental  in  each.  Each 
has  this  historic,  scenic  element,  and  each  is  alike  success- 
ful to  the  degree  in  which  it  represents  the  imaginary  as 


I  . 


FB08E  FICTION  331 

real  and,  for  the  time,  produces  upon  the  reader  or 
spectator  the  impression  of  lifelike  reality.  Here,  also, 
is  seen  the  close  relation  of  Fiction  to  Poetry,  in  that  in 
each  Imagination  is  a  vital  faculty,  so  that  here  the  old 
discussion  as  to  the  place  of  Fiction  is  revived,  as  to 
whether  it  belongs  to  prose  or  verse. 

Here  also  emerges  the  larger  question,  as  to  the  Place 
of  Imagination  in  Literature,  especially  in  Prose,  and  to 
what  degree  Prose  License  rightfully  exists.  The  more 
we  examine  it,  the  more  certain  it  appears  that  the 
Imagination  has  a  wider  function  in  literature  than  has 
hitherto  been  conceded,  in  that  apart  from  bare  narrative 
and  technical  discussion  this  power  enters  and  controls 
or  affects  the  process.  The  growth  of  symbolism  in 
literature  and  life  is  a  matter  that  must  arrest  the  atten- 
tion of  all  thoughtful  students  of  either;  the  widening  of 
the  world  of  unreality;  the  ever  larger  interaction  of  the 
pictorial  and  the  practical — in  a  word,  the  imperative  de- 
mand for  some  kind  of  imaginative  outlook  and  exercise. 

A  second  Essential  is  the  Knowledge  of  Human  ^Nature, 
profound  and  broad;  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  man 
and  men  ;  with  the  human  mind  and  heart ;  with  human 
motives,  ideals  and  impulses,  and  thus  with  the  best 
methods  of  reaching  men.  The  novelist  must  know  men 
better  than  books,  must  be  at  home  on  the  street  and  in 
the  shop  and  caucus.  Such  a  knowledge  must  be  psycho- 
logical and  social,  must  include  the  human  environment, 
social,  civil,  industrial  and  ethical. 

Eealistic  Fiction  is  in  special  need  of  this  as  it  pur- 
ports to  deal  with  life  at  first  hand  and  as  it  actually  is. 
Fiction  is  thus  a  photographic  art  in  literature,  the  art 
of  verbal  verisimilitude,  demanding  in  the  artist  a  full 
acquaintance  with  the  subject  with  which  he  is  dealing. 


332  LITEBATUBE 

A  third  Essential  is  Style,  in  all  the  complex  elements 
that  it  involves.  The  Novelist  and  Eomancer  mnst  be, 
in  the  best  sense.  Stylists  ;  exponents  of  literary  art,  em- 
phasizing, as  such,  the  value  of  literary  form,  of  tech- 
nique in  prose  expression. 

We  have  spoken  of  Fiction  in  its  relation  to  the  Imagi- 
nation as  a  faculty  of  representation.  It  is,  also,  the 
faculty  of  presentation,  a  specifically  literary  function. 
In  no  department  of  prose  is  what  may  be  called,  literary 
manner  or  method,  more  essential.  The  primal  purpose 
of  the  writer  of  Fiction  is  to  make  his  readers  spectators  ; 
to  make  them  see  the  object  he  is  depicting  precisely  as 
he  sees  it  5  a  result  all  the  more  difficult  to  reach  in  fic- 
tion, in  that  the  author  has  not,  as  in  the  drama,  the  im- 
portant aid  of  the  actor  and  the  scenery,  but  must  rely 
for  his  effect  absolutely  upon  himself  and  his  ability  to 
set  the  truth  before  the  reader  in  such  wise  as  to  make 
it  a  reality.  If  it  be  asked,  what  are  the  principal  feat- 
ures or  Principles  of  Style  which  the  novelist  should 
exemplify,  we  answer,  that  there  are  three  of  these  which 
any  literary  product  whatsover  should  illustrate, — 
Clearness,  Vigor  and  Taste,  while,  in  Fiction,  Style  must 
be  Delineative.  Delineation  is  a  specific  quality  of  Prose 
Fiction,  drawing  the  lines  about  a  subject,  a  scene,  a  per- 
son or  a  principle,  mapping  them  out  before  the  eye  of  the 
world  in  a  bold  and  graphic  manner.  The  novelist  must 
be  a  Limner,  an  Illustrator,  a  literary  draughtsman  with 
pencil  in  hand,  a  verbal  portrait-painter.  In  this  sense, 
all  fiction  is  descriptive,  even  tho  the  product  be  historical, 
philosophic  or  sentimental,  so  that  no  marked  or  perma- 
nent success  can  be  secured  without  it.  In  a  word,  Style 
in  Fiction  mnst  be  Scenic,  Spectacular,  and,  here,  again, 
we  come  to  the  dramatic  element  in  romantic  literature. 


I 


PROSE  FICTION  333 

The  question  is  sometimes  pressed — What  is  the  Ideal 
Novel  ?  Is  it  at  all  realized  or  is  it  realizable  ?  ' '  Tt  has 
always  seemed  to  me,"  writes  Crawford,  "that  the  per- 
fect novel  exists  somewhere  in  the  state  of  Platonic  idea, 
waiting  to  be  set  down  on  jjaper  by  (he  first  man  of 
genius  who  receives  a  direct  literary  inspiration,"  and, 
he  adds,  more  definitely,  ' '  it  must  be  clean  and  sweet ; 
it  must  have  the  magic  to  fascinate  and  the  power  to 
hold  its  reader  from  first  to  last ;  it  must  deal  chiefly 
with  love ;  its  realism  must  be  real,  and  its  romance 
must  be  truly  human,  and  its  religion  must  be  of  such 
universal  span  as  to  hold  all  worthy  religions  in  itself." 
Here,  indeed,  is  a  lofty  aim,  given  by  one  who  is  him- 
self a  master  in  the  art  and  seeking  ever  to  approximate 
more  and  more  closely  to  the  ideal  he  has  drawn.  If 
the  ideal  novelist  must  have  these  characteristics,  then 
must  the  essentials  stated  be  present — a  high  order  of 
imagination,  a  full  knowledge  of  human  nature  and  an 
order  of  literary  art,  alike  clear,  urgent,  chaste  and  im- 
pressive. What,  we  are  asked,  is  the  Probable  Perma- 
nence of  the  present  dominance  of  Fiction  ?  The  uovel 
is  said  to  be  ^ '  a  marketable  commodity, ' '  and  we  hear 
' '  of  the  still  growing  taste  for  fiction, ' '  and  the  question 
is  raised  by  Crawford  '' whether  this  expresses  an  endur- 
ing want  of  educated  men  and  women."  Apparently, 
it  does.  More  authors  are  now  writing  it  than  ever, 
while  there  is  no  visible  sign  of  declension.  If,  more- 
over, the  novel  must  deal  chiefly  with  love,  and  if  in 
that  passion,  all  men  and  women  share,  we  are  warranted 
in  asserting  that  the  conditions  of  permanence  are  pres- 
ent. What  is  all  literature,  after  all,  but  Eomance  or 
Realism,  and  what  is  all  life  but  these?  Inasmuch  as 
Fiction  exemplifies  these  as  no  other  form  of  literature 


334  LITERATURE 

does,  it  is  clear  that  it  will  ever  have  a  controlling  influ- 
ence and  hold  the  patronage  of  the  people.  Hence  the 
necessity  of  its  production  in  its  highest  and  best  forms. 
To  the  effecting  of  this  result  every  novelist  should  be 
committed  as  a  protest  against  the  dominance  of  the 
modern  novel  of  revolting  realism.  Careful  observers  of 
the  literary  signs  of  the  times  are  speaking  of  the  Ee- 
vival  of  Eomance  and  of  Realism,  a  Eevival,  we  hope,  of 
the  Eomance  of  Scott  and  the  Eealism  of  Thackeray.  If 
this  be  so,  the  increasing  currency  of  imaginative  litera- 
ture need  not  disturb  us,  as  in  the  long  working-day  of 
this  matter-of-fact  world  it  will  serve  to  afford  us  many 
a  needed  hour  of  hope  and  happiness  and  cheer. 


CHAPTER    NINE 

OPEN   QUESTIONS   IN    LITERATURE— I 

In  literature,  as  in  other  departments  of  intellectual 
inquiry,  there  may  be  said  to  be  some  elements  that  are 
stable  and  finally  adjusted,  and  others  that  are  more  or 
less  variable,  tho  working  gradually  toward  a  finally 
established  and  permanent  form.  No  sooner  are  problems 
that  have  long  been  agitated  brought  to  settlement  than 
new  problems  are  seen  to  emerge  demanding  similar  study 
and  adjudication,  it  being  presumable  that  the  area  of 
settled  questions  is  constantly  enlarging  as  that  of  un- 
settled questions  is  diminishing.  There  is  no  prospect, 
however,  that  the  discussion  of  such  questions  will  ever 
be  finally  closed.  There  is,  indeed,  in  the  agitation  it- 
self a  sign  of  life,  one  of  the  best  indications  possible  that 
literature,  as  all  other  valid  sciences,  is  progressive,  in 
touch  with  the  advance  of  kindred  sciences,  and  as  such 
coordinated  with  every  form  of  mental  activity  and  with 
the  ever-changing  phases  of  life  itself.  It  is  in  view  of 
this  fact  that  the  study  of  literature,  in  its  highest  and 
best  expressions  and  on  rational  methods,  is  a  specific 
mental  stimulus  as  well  as  pleasure,  ever  inviting  the 
student  to  the  investigation  of  new  phenomena,  and  ever 
repaying  his  researches  by  their  better  understanding 
and  adjustment.  Some  of  the  more  important  of  these 
questions  may  now  be  discussed. 

I.   The  Belation  of  Prose  and  Verse  as  Literary  Forms. 
A.t  first  sight  it  might  seem  as  if  the  lines  of  difference 

335 


336  LITERATURE 

between  these  two  types  were  so  marked  as  to  make  it 
impossible  to  confound  tliem.  The  one  we  have  been  in- 
clined to  regard  as  the  embodiment  of  reason  and  intel- 
lect proper,  and  the  other,  of  imagination  and  taste;  and 
yet,  on  examination,  we  are  at  once  aware  how  fully  and 
easily  prose  expression,  as  in  De  Quincey's  ''Opium 
Eater,"  takes  on  an  imaginative  cast,  and  j)oetry,  as  in 
Browning's  ''Eing  and  the  Book,"  takes  on  the  reflect- 
ive and  mental  cast.  The  object  of  the  one,  we  are 
wont  to  say,  is  instruction,  and  that  of  the  other,  pleas- 
are,  while,  here  again,  each  of  these  provinces  is  invaded 
by  the  other;  prose,  as  in  Lamb  and  Irving,  being  made 
specifically  entertaining,  and  poetry,  as  in  Goethe  and 
Milton,  enlightening  and  stimulating.  Even  when  we 
emphasize  the  most  essential  difference  between  the  two, 
and  say  that  the  one  is  unmetrical  and  the  other  met- 
rical, we  are  confronted  with  the  fact,  as  in  the  semi- 
metrical  prose  of  Euskin  and  Hawthorne  and  the  semi- 
anmetrical  poetry  of  Akenside  and  \Yhitman,  that  the 
boundary  line  is  often  scarcely  discernible.  In  fact,  the 
writer  passes  almost  imperceptibly  from  one  to  the  other, 
the  suggestive  statement  of  Dryden  beiug  here  in  place 
when  he  speaks  of  poetry  ''as  the  other  harmony  of 
prose, ' '  each  of  them  being  but  a  varied  form  of  some 
one  generic  literary  jirinciple.  It  is  a  striking  fact  that 
in  so  far  as  the  derivation  of  the  terms — prose  and  verse  y 
— is  concerned,  there  is  practical  identity  of  meaning, 
the  Latin  etymology  of  the  word,  prose,  from  proversus, 
giving  us  the  very  word,  verse  itself,  the  present  differ- 
ence of  the  words  being  a  matter  of  later  variation  and 
usage.  Prose  is  direct  verse.  Hence,  the  well-known 
middle  area  of  what  is  called,  Poetical  Prose,  as  in  Pres- 
cott,  and  Prose  Poetry,  as  in  Pope,     That  immense  field 


OPEN  QUESTIONS  IN  LITERATURE      337 

wbicli,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  is  kuowu  as  Prose  Fic- 
tion, illustrates  it,  the  very  phrase  so  involving  the  com- 
bination of  prose  proper  with  some  other  element  more 
or  less  poetic  that  such  critics  as  Minto  and  Masson  place 
it  under  verse.  Thus  we  read  of  "prose  rhythm"  as 
well  as  of  ''poetic  rhythm."  Saintsbury  gives  us,  in  his 
"Specimens  of  English  Prose,"  the  characteristics  of 
each  of  them.  As  a  notable  example  of  this  English 
"prose  rhythm  "  he  adduces  a  portion  of  the  Canticles  of 
Scripture,  and  while  referring  to  Euskin,  as  an  exponent 
of  it,  adds,  "that  it  has  invaded  history,  permeated 
social  writing  and  affected  criticism."  "To  draw  the 
line  between  the  domain  of  prose  and  verse, ' '  says  Cor- 
son, "is  not  easy."  In  referring  to  Shakespeare  "as 
the  first  to  mingle  organically,  in  dramatic  composition, 
blank  verse  and  rhyme  and  prose,"  he  admits  that,  even 
in  Shakespeare,  "verse  constantly  encroaches  uj)on  the 
domain  of  prose."  So  it  was  in  the  plays  of  Ben  Jonsou 
and  Lyly  and  other  Elizabethan  dramatists.  Much  of 
the  English  Comedy  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  is  presented  in  this  exceptional  form.  Drydeu 
himself  illustrates  it  as  he  reduces  to  prose  the  "Canter- 
bury Tales."  So  we  have  "The  Vision  of  Piers  Plow- 
man" in  prose  by  Armour,  as  we  have  a  prose  Beowulf 
by  Hall  and  Tinker.  Thus  it  is  that  while  some  of  the 
historical  periods  of  English  may  be  classified  as  prose 
periods  or  iDoetry  periods,  there  are  other  eras  in  which 
the  two  types  are  so  interrelated  that  they  are  best 
studied  together.  While  authors  such  as  Chaucer, 
Spenser  and  Longfellow  are  mainly  poets,  and  such  as 
Macaulay  and  Emerson  mainly  prose- writers,  there  are 
others  as  Scott  and  Holmes  and  Swinburne  who  have  so 
illustrated  each  form  that  their  prose  and  verse  mutually 


338  LITEBATUBE 

affect  eacli  otlier.  In  fine,  prose  aud  verse,  tlio  distinct 
types  of  literature,  are  yet  closely  enough  allied  to  be 
studied  in  unison,  it  being  quite  conceivable  that  in  the 
highest  forms  of  human  thinking  and  experience  the 
special  type  of  embodiment  is  immaterial,  and  the  two  are 
blended  with  unconscious  ease  and  effect.  Blank  Verse 
is  thus  seen  to  be  an  accepted  and  effective  compromise 
between  prose  and  verse. 

II.  The  Belative  Bank  of  Epic,  Dramatic  and  Lyric 
Verse.  We  touch  here  upon  a  topic  which  serves  to  il- 
lustrate the  principle  that  a  question  once  regarded  as 
finally  closed  may  be,  at  length,  reopened  for  discussion, 
new  evidence  calling  for  reconsideration.  Hitherto, 
Epic  Poetry  has  been  accepted  by  the  critics  and  the 
general  literary  public  as  the  primary  form  ;  partly,  by 
reason  of  its  alleged  antiquity  as  a  form  and,  partly,  on 
account  of  its  intrinsic  character  and  final  poetic  pur- 
pose. The  element  of  Sublimity  being  .accepted,  theo- 
retically, as  the  first  element  of  standard  verse,  and  the 
epic  poem  being,  also,  accepted  as  best  illustrating  this 
essential  condition  of  sublimity  as  laid  down  by  Lon- 
ginus,  the  conclusion  has  naturally  followed  as  to  the 
leading  place  of  the  epic  in  the  poetic  trio.  Later  inves- 
tigation has,  however,  started  the  question  as  to  the 
validity  of  this  reasoning  and  the  conclusion  reached, 
whether,  indeed,  if  the  premises  themselves  be  accepted, 
we  are  shut  up  to  the  inference  that  is  given.  If  it  be 
conceded  that  sublimity  is  the  highest  element  of  verse, 
valid  objection  may  be  made  to  the  opinion  that  at- 
tributes to  the  epic  the  fullest  possession  of  this  quality, 
the  inquiry  properly  arising,  whether  in  such  a  tragedy 
as  ' '  Hamlet "   or   ' '  The  Medea ' '  moral  sublimity  does 


\ 


OPEN  QUESTIONS  IN  LITEBATTJBE      339 


not  reach,  its  maximum  expression.  Moreover,  sublim- 
ity tho  the  highest,  is  by  no  means  the  only  element  of 
verse,  it  being  possible  that  such  other  important  ele- 
ments are  found  to  such  a  degree  within  the  domain  of 
the  dramatic  and  lyric  as  to  make  them  fair  competitors 
with  the  epic  for  poetic  primacy.  Even  as  to  antiquity, 
it  must  be  conceded  that  the  lyric  takes  precedence, 
while  it  might  be  a  matter  of  serious  difficulty  to  show 
conclusively  that  the  legends  and  traditions  which  form 
the  groundwork  of  epic  verse  are  any  more  ancient  than 
what  we  may  call  the  beginnings  of  the  drama.  If  to 
these  considerations,  we  add  that  of  scope  or  province, 
it  is  quite  conceivable  that  either  in  lyric  or  play  the 
argument  is  against  the  epic,  there  being,  indeed,  no 
human  experience  that  is  foreign  to  the  tragic  and  the 
comic  and  to  the  emotional  element  of  the  lyric.  In  so 
far,  therefore,  as  modern  poetic  criticism  is  concerned, 
it  may  be  said  that  the  manifest  trend  of  opinion  is 
away  from  the  epic  toward  the  dramatic,  as  a  kind  of 
verse  in  which  epical  sublimity  and  lyric  sentiment  alike 
come  to  their  full  expression,  and  which  possesses  features 
additional  to  those  that  are  peculiarly  its  own  and  that 
make  it  adaptable  to  wider  needs.  National  and  popular 
in  its  origin,  and  arising  out  of  the  life  of  the  people  and 
not  of  a  class  and  out  of  the  deepest  moral  instincts  of 
the  race,  with  human  history  as  its  field,  and  the  repre- 
sentation of  character  its  final  purpose,  comprehensive 
in  its  range  and  diversified  in  its  expression,  we  may  say 
of  dramatic  verse  as  a  whole  what  Walpole  said  of  com- 
edy, '^that  it  is  the  perfection  of  human  composition." 

It  is  to  be,  moreover,  remembered  that  the  epic  verse 
of  the  world  is  limited  while  we  have  a  body  of  dramatic 
composition  characteristically  large  and  inviting. 


340  LITERATURE 

III.   The  Relation  of  the  Drama  to  the  Stage.     It  is  the 
relation  of  the  written  product  to  its  oral  presentation, 

We  notice,  at  the  outset,  that  the  word,  drama,  in  its 
Greek  origin,  means,  action,  the  manifestation  of  life,  the 
natural  tendency  of  the  written  composition  to  assume 
the  oral,  actable  form  being  thus  involved  in  the  terms 
themselves.  The  English  actor,  Irving,  in  a  recent  work 
on  the  '^ Drama,"  uses  the  word  throughout  as  involv 
ing  both  dramatic  literature  and  dramatic  representa 
tion,  the  acting  of  the  Play  being,  as  he  holds,  an  essen-* 
tial  part  of  its  conception  and  construction.  The  Stage, 
as  he  teaches  us,  is  best  viewed  as  an  interpreter  of  the 
Ijoem,  so  that  the  jDoem,  as  a  literary  product,  can  not  be 
said  to  come  to  its  fulfilment  this  side  the  stage.  Action 
in  scenic  form  is  involved  in  the  dramatic  idea.  Saints- 
bury,  in  speaking  of  the  nineteenth -century  English 
Drama,  tells  us  ' '  that  it  has  displayed  one  curious  and 
disastrous  characteristic,  namely,  that  the  Plays  which 
have  been  good  literature  have  either  never  been  acted 
or  have  seldom  succeeded  as  Plays,  and  that  the  Plays 
that  have  been  acted  and  have  been  successful  have  sel- 
dom been  good  literature. ' '  The  critic  in  calling  this 
" a  curious  and  disastrous  characteristic"  is  eminently 
right  in  that  it  runs  directly  counter  to  the  best  literary 
theory,  as  it  does,  also,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  to  the  most 
notable  dramatic  periods  in  literary  history.  It  would 
seem  to  be  a  thoroughly  abnormal  relation  of  the  drama 
and  the  stage,  widely  sundering  them  in  ideal  and  spirit, 
when  both  on  a  priori  and  experimental  grounds  they 
should  work  together  for  the  same  high  ends.  As  it  is  a 
sure  proof  of  general  literary  decadence  and  of  special 
dramatic  decadence  when  literature  and  the  drama  are 
divorced,  so  is  it  an  equally  sure  proof  of  such  decadence 


OPEN  QUESTIONS  IN  LITERATURE      341 

when  the  drama  and  the  stage  are  divorced.  Herein  lies 
one  of  the  unfailing  tests  of  the  dramatic  character  of  any 
particular  period  or  people,  the  ideal  drama  being  alike 
representable  and  conformable  to  the  best  literary  models. 
This  is  not  to  say  that  all  Plays  are  alike  actable,  nor  that 
what  is  called,  The  Closet  Drama,  or  The  Melodrama,  as 
in  Browning  and  Byron,  may  not  have  a  good  degree  of 
dramatic  and  literary  merit.  There  is,  indeed,  a  valid 
difference  between  the  terms,  dramatic  and  theatric  ;  the 
first  referring  to  the  internal  quality  of  the  poem,  and 
the  second,  to  its  scenic  adaptability  to  the  stage.  There 
is  such  a  form  of  literature  as  dramatic  prose  and  poetry 
that  is  not  marked  by  the  theatric  cast.  Not  a  little  of 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  century  English  Drama 
was  of  this  particular  type,  this  being  one  of  the  marks 
of  its  inferiority  as  compared  with  the  Elizabethan  Drama. 
Herein  lies  much  of  the  weakness  of  the  dramatic  verse 
of  Tennyson,  in  that,  with  all  its  literary  vigor  and  charm, 
it  evinces  a  notable  lack  of  the  stage  features,  the  mas- 
terly genius  of  Mr.  Irving  being  put  to  its  severest  test 
to  make  the  best  examples  of  it,  such  as  Becket,  at  all 
acceptable  to  an  English  audience.  The  great  actor 
elicited  unmerited  praise  just  because  he  partially  suc- 
ceeded in  presenting  with  scenic  effect  those  English 
Plays  that  lack  some  of  the  fundamental  elements  of 
a  Play.  As  the  French  state  it,  he  succeeded  ' '  in 
creating  a  part, ' '  and  thus  has  somewhat  atoned  for  the 
absence  of  histrionic  features.  It  may  further  be  noted 
that  the  highest  ideal  of  dramatic  art  is  found  when  the 
author  and  the  actor  are  one  and  the  same  personality, 
as  in  the  case  of  Sophocles,  .^schylus,  Moliere  and 
Shakespeare,  it  being  an  interesting  historical  fact  that 
the  Prologue  to  the  Play  was  often  spoken  through  cour- 


342  LITERATURE 

tesy  by  the  author  himself  and  then  the  Play  was  com- 
mitted to  the  players.  Here  we  have  Impersonation  in 
a  double  form  and  a  corresponding  increase  in  the  eifect. 
Dramatic  critics  have  gone  so  far  as  to  say  '  '■  that  no  one 
who  has  not  practical  knowledge  of  the  stage  can  write  a 
good  acting  play."  So,  Saintsbury  writes,  and  so  Irving 
has  taught  us.  Who  can  tell  how  much  of  the  success 
of  Shakespeare  was  due  to  the  fact  that  he  knew  experi- 
mentally every  detail  of  the  actor' s  work  and  appeared 
in  the  representation  of  his  own  characters!  It  is  here, 
as  nowhere  else,  that  the  Baconian  theory  of  the  author- 
ship of  these  Plays  finds  its  refutation.  It  is  not  strange, 
therefore,  that  Mr.  Irving,  in  his  book  on  ^^  The  Drama," 
devotes  a  portion  of  it  to  the  history  of  four  great  actors, 
Burbage,  Betterton,  Garrick  and  Kean,  whereby  he  shows 
the  intimate  connection  between  the  actor  and  the  act- 
ing, so  that,  even  where  the  actor  is  not  himself  the  au- 
thor, his  main  object  as  an  actor  is  to  minimize  the  dis- 
tance between  himself  and  the  author.  We  speak  of 
representing  Shakespeare,  by  which  we  mean  the  repro- 
duction of  his  characters  in  living  presence  on  the  stage 
as  if  they  were  veritably  in  person  before  us.  Garrick, 
whose  special  glory  it  was  ^^to  make  the  Shakesperian 
Drama  once  more  popular, ' '  must  have  been  heard  with 
unwonted  interest,  as  in  "The  Lying  Valet"  and  "The 
Clandestine  Marriage ' '  he  was  alike  actor  and  author. 

IV.  The  Relation  of  tJie  Drama  to  the  Novel.  A  priori, 
it  might  be  argued  that  such  a  relation  of  intimacy  ex- 
ists, in  that  each  of  them  might  be  defined  to  be — A  Rep- 
resentation of  Life.  This  is  true  alike  of  tragedy  and 
comedy,  and  true  of  every  form  of  the  novel,  narrative, 
descriptive,  or  philosophic.     When  we  say  that  one  of 


OPEN  QUESTIONS  IN  LITERATURE       343 

the  main  features  of  Fiction  is  that  of  delineation,  we 
state,  also,  one  of  the  chief  features  of  the  drama,  and 
when,  conversely,  we  describe  the  purpose  of  the  drama, 
in  Shakespearian  phrase,  ''to  hold  the  mirror  up  to 
nature,"  we  equally  aptly  describe  therein  one  of  the 
prime  purposes  of  the  novel  as  such.  Hence,  many  of 
the  definitions  applicable  to  the  one  may  justly  be  ap- 
plied to  the  other,  much  of  their  difference  lying  in  dif- 
ferent forms  of  applying  the  same  generic  principles. 
Thus,  Macready,  the  actor,  as  quoted  by  Irving,  defines 
the  object  of  the  drama  to  be  "to  fathom  the  depths  of 
character,  to  trace  its  latent  motives,  to  feel  its  finest 
quiverings  of  emotion,  to  comprehend  the  thoughts  that 
are  hidden  under  words  and  thus  possess  one's  self  of  the 
actual  mind  of  the  individual  men, ' '  all  of  which  lan- 
guage would  well  set  forth  the  ultimate  ideal  of  the 
novel.  So,  Mr.  Irving  himself,  in  describing  the  drama 
as  ''the  Art  of  Human  Nature  in  picturesque  or  charac- 
teristic action,"  gives  us  the  essential  feature  of  fiction. 
When  Sidney  Lanier  states,  that  the  principle  of  the  de- 
velopment of  the  novel  is  the  exhibition  of  the  idea  of 
personality  in  its  progressive  growth,  we  have  the  drama 
essentially  described,  while  the  accepted  division  of  Fic- 
tion might  be  applied  substantially  to  Plays.  Thus,  we 
have  drama,  as  "The  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  writ- 
ten in  specifically  fictitious  form,  and  novels,  such  as 
Victor  Hugo's  "  Les  Miserables  "  and  "Ninety -Three," 
written  in  dramatic  form,  so  as  to  lessen  more  and  more 
the  distance  and  the  difference  between  the  two,  and  re- 
quire, on  the  part  of  any  author  who  would  be  a  master 
in  either,  to  possess  the  evidences  of  a  good  degree  of 
ability  in  the  other.  If  the  historical  beginning  of  The 
English  Novel  is  correctly  assigned  to  the  Age  of  Sidney, 


344  LITERATURE 

in  his  ''Arcadia,"  then  we  have  the  origin  of  the  Mod- 
ern English  Drama  and  the  Modern  English  Novel  as 
contemporary.  Jusserand's  treatise,  "The  English 
Novel  In  the  Time  of  Shakespeare,"  affords  us,  in  its 
very  title,  this  same  historical  relation.  Mr.  Ward,  in 
his  ' '  History  of  The  English  Drama, ' '  traces  the  same  his- 
torical and  literary  connection  from  the  Age  of  Elizabeth 
to  the  death  of  Queen  Anne.  There  are  special  proofs 
of  the  closeness  of  this  connection.  The  one  is  found  in 
the  increasing  interest  that  is  now  taken  in  The  Dram- 
atization of  Novels  as  recently  applied  with  good  effect 
to  the  fiction  of  Maclaren  and  Caine  and  Hope  and  Bar- 
rie  and  Wallace  and  others,  the  double  object  being 
sought  of  making  the  novel  itself  more  realistic  and  pre- 
senting the  dramatic  poem  from  every  possible  point  of 
view.  Indeed,  in  the  widest  meaning  of  the  word — 
realistic — applicable  alike  to  the  Novel  and  the  Play,  we 
discover  still  another  evidence  of  their  common  charac- 
teristics and  the  literary  value  of  emphasizing  them. 
Mrs.  Stowe's  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin;  or.  Life  Among 
the  Lowly, ' '  so  successfully  dramatized  on  the  stage,  is  a 
pertinent  illustration  of  this  common  realism  in  litera- 
ture. A  further  evidence  of  this  relation  is  seen  in  the 
combination  of  the  dramatist  and  novelist  in  one  person- 
ality. We  need  not  go  outside  the  province  of  English 
Letters  to  substantiate  this  view,  as  in  Bulwer,  author 
alike  of  " Eienzi "  and  "Harold"  and  of  "Eichelieu" 
and  "The  Lady  of  Lyons"  ;  or  in  Goldsmith,  as  the 
author  of  "The  Good-natured  Man"  and  "The  Vicar 
of  Wakefield."  So,  Smollett  wrote  "The  Regicide," 
and  Scott,  his  semi- dramatic  poems ;  Longfellow,  his 
"Spanish  Student,"  and  Taylor,  his  "Prince  Deuka- 
lion."     So,  Goethe  wrote  "The  Sorrows  of  Werther" 


OPEN  QUE8TI0N8  IN  LITERATURE       345 

and  ' '  Goetz  von  BerlicMngen, ' '  the  wonder  being  that 
literature,  ancient  and  modern,  is  not  fuller  than  it  is  of 
this  double  form  of  literary  product  from  the  same 
authors.  A  study  of  interest  emerges  here  as  we  inves- 
tigate the  common  causes  of  these  two  types,  the  com- 
mon ground  on  which  they  stand,  the  common  ideals 
they  have  in  view,  the  dialog  of  the  drama,  hitherto 
so  strictly  confined  to  it,  being  now  a  common  part  of 
fictitious  narrative.  In  the  unacted  novel  there  is  sim- 
ply wanting  the  regular  succession  of  act  and  scene,  and 
the  writer,  instead  of  representing  truth  as  external  to 
himself,  is  supposed  to  present  it  as  it  appears  to  his 
own  mind. 

This  conceded,  with  other  points  of  difference,  it  still 
remains  true  that  their  relationships  are  so  pronounced 
as  to  confirm  the  fact  of  increasing  unity  in  literary  types. 
^'  The  end  of  philosophy,"  says  Bacon,  '4s  the  intuition 
of  unity."  This  is,  also,  one  of  the  ends  of  the  philos- 
ophy of  literature. 

Y.  Generalization  and  Specialization  in  Literature.  The 
question  is  as  to  their  comparative  importance,  being  in 
literature  what  the  A  Priori  and  A  Posteriori  methods 
are  in  logic  and  philosophy.  It  is  the  mooted  question 
of  the  Deductive  and  Inductive  in  Letters.  At  the  out- 
set, it  may  be  noted,  that  in  such  a  discussion  we  have  a 
tangible  proof  of  the  fact  that  literature  is  no  exception 
to  the  application  of  scientific  modes  of  reasoning,  that 
it  is  thus  proved  to  be  a  science  and  philosophy,  subject 
to  the  same  great  laws  of  logical  process  and  conclusion, 
and  thus  thoroughly  coordinated  with  all  the  great  de- 
partments of  human  thought.  As  soon  as  we  pass  from 
the  domain  of  philosophy  or  science  to  literature  we  find 


346  LITEBATTJBE 

a  province  in  which,  all  these  processes  have  an  applica- 
tion, it  being  competent  for  the  literary  student  to  begin 
deductively  with  a  principle  or  set  of  principles  or  in- 
ductively to  collate  sufficient  facts  on  any  given  book, 
author,  period  or  movement  to  justify  the  inference  of  a 
general  law.  Which  of  these  methods,  the  critics  ask, 
shall  dominate,  it  being  in  place  to  say,  that  the  nature 
of  the  literary  topic  in  hand,  the  specific  purpose  of  the 
student  at  the  time,  and  his  own  best  judgment  will  prove 
a  sufficiently  accurate  guide  to  a  proper  choice  of  methods. 
There  are  some  subjects  that  are  abstract  in  nature,  in 
regard  to  which  there  are  but  a  few  facts  to  collate  and 
which  are  thus  in  themselves  fitting  subjects  for  deduct- 
ive process.  Other  topics  are  mainly  concrete,  open  to 
personal  observation  and  experience,  are  within  the  well- 
understood  area  of  testimony  and,  as  such,  are  naturally  of 
the  inductive  type.  It  can  not  be  too  strongly  urged 
that  in  literature,  as  in  other  spheres,  these  two  methods 
may  be  appropriately  applied  in  conjunction,  the  very 
principles  from  which  we  argue  deductively  being  first 
reached  through  the  slower  process  of  induction.  Hence, 
it  is  unwise  to  widen  the  distance  too  greatly  between 
these  accepted  methods,  or  to  press  the  inquiry  too 
strongly  as  to  which  should  have  the  precedence  in  lit- 
erature. Professor  Moulton,  in  his  volume,  '  '■  Shakespeare 
as  a  Dramatic  Artist,"  carries  this  controversy,  as  we 
believe,  to  an  unnecessary  and  harmful  extreme.  The 
treatise  is  a  plea  for  the  inductive  method  in  the  study 
of  Shakespeare  and  thus,  by  inference,  in  all  dramatic, 
poetic  and  literary  study.  His  object,  as  he  states  it,  is 
'Ho  present  Dramatic  Criticism  as  a  regular  Inductive 
Science. ' '  He  speaks  of  it  as  a  new  departure  in  literary 
criticism,  as  if,  indeed,  it  were  not  as  old  as  literary  crit- 


OPIJ]^  QUESTION'S  IN  LITEBATUBU       347 

icism  itself,  tlio  becoming  more  and  more  pronounced  as 
the  history  of  such  criticism  advanced.  It  is  seen  in  all 
the  great  critics  of  literature,  in  Goethe,  Lessiug,  Saint 
Beuve,  Cousin,  De  Quincey  and  Coleridge,  and  developed 
conjointly  with  the  deductive  process.  When  he  tells 
us  '^that  induction  is  the  most  universal  of  scientific 
methods  and  may  be  presumed  to  apply  wherever  there 
is  a  subject-matter  reducible  to  the  form  of  fact,"  we 
need  not  demur,  but  must  add  that  it  is  not  the  only  im- 
portant scientific  method  and  that  deduction  may  be  pre- 
sumed to  apply  equally  well,  in  literature  or  elsewhere, 
wherever  there  is  a  subject-matter  reducible  to  the  form 
of  principle.  When  he  adds  'Hhat  inductive  criticism 
will  examine  literature  in  the  spirit  of  pure  investiga- 
tion ' '  the  same  may  be  said  of  deduction.  In  fine,  there 
is  room  and  need  for  both  methods,  while  there  is  no  error 
in  making  the  statement  that,  in  accordance  with  the 
trend  of  modern  science,  philosophy  and  literature,  crit- 
icism is  becoming,  and  rightly  so,  more  and  more  in- 
ductive, '^ the  whole  progress  of  science  consisting,"  as 
Professor  Moulton  urges,  ''in  winning  fresh  fields  of 
thought  to  the  inductive  method."  Even  here,  how- 
ever, students  of  literature  must  be  on  their  guard,  and 
heed  the  note  of  warning  that  is  sounded  in  these  days 
against  the  tendency  to  undue  specialization.  Other- 
wise, Literature  may  become  a  mere  collation  of  facts,  a 
tabulation  of  data,  and  the  student' s  energies  be  absorbed 
in  the  mere  classification  of  material. 

It  is  possible  thus  to  devote  months  of  study  to  the 
poetry  of  Pope  or  the  Prose  of  Dryden  without  touching 
on  those  great  generic  principles  which  these  authors 
represented.  In  literature,  as  elsewhere,  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  the  sense  of  perspective,  the  need  of  good  sense 


348  LITER  A  T  TIRE 

and  good  taste.  There  is  manifest  need,  just  now,  in 
literature  of  the  severer  application  of  Generalization. 
A  great  result  is  reached  when  a  fundamental  principle 
is  secured. 

VI.  The  Question  of  Literary  Standards.  The  usage  of 
the  best  writers,  we  are  wont  to  say,  is  the  final  standard 
of  taste:  What,  we  may  ask,  is  the  law  of  classifying 
writers  as  good  ?  What  is  the  standard  of  good  litera- 
ture itself?  To  this  it  is  answered  :  It  is  The  Accepted 
Principles  of  Literary  Art,  such  principles  having  been 
reached  by  long  and  patient  study  and  ratified  by  a  con- 
sensus of  opinion,  the  literary  world  over.  This  con. 
ceded,  it  is  important  to  state,  that  tho  the  standard  of 
literature  remains  from  age  to  age  in  its  substantial  char- 
acter as  such,  there  is  still  within  the  province  of  litera- 
ture a  wide  variety  of  feature,  partly  induced  by  external 
influence  of  time  and  place  and  race  and,  partly,  by  an 
inherent  and  ever  active  tendency  to  variation.  We 
speak  of  the  historic  development  of  prose  and  verse, 
which  is  the  same  as  saying  that  the  prose  and  verse  of 
different  periods,  while  practically  conforming  to  a  com- 
mon standard,  also  reveal  marked  differences  of  type. 
The  prose  of  Bacon  and  that  of  Macaulay  are  alike  stand- 
ard, and,  yet,  dissimilar,  as  revealing  the  respective  per- 
sonalities of  the  author  and  the  epochs  in  which  they 
lived.  So  the  epics  of  Homer  and  Milton,  the  Plays  of 
Shakespeare  and  Eacine,  and  the  Lyrics  of  Schiller  and 
Burns,  reveal  decided  variation  while  conforming  to 
poetic  law.  It  is  thus  that  Saiutsbury  writes  of  nine- 
teenth-century prose  '^  that  the  change  of  stj'le  therein 
is  as  much  the  leading  feature  of  the  century  as  in  poetry 
the   change  of  thought  and   outlook."      So,    Moulton, 


OPEN  QUESTIONS  IN  LITERATURE      319 

speaking  of  standards  as  settled  or  variable,  refutes  the 
idea  ' '  that  tlie  foundations  of  literary  form  have  reached 
their  final  settlement, ' '  and  confirms  the  dictum  ' '  that 
literature  is  a  thing  of  development. "  These  two  facts, 
therefore,  conceded,  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  fixed 
standard  in  literature  and  that  within  the  limitations  of 
such  a  standard  there  is  much  literary  liberty  and  con- 
sequent variety  of  type,  it  remains  to  utter  a  word  of 
warning  against  the  increasing  tendency  in  modern  times 
to  depreciate  or  modify  such  a  standard  in  the  interest 
of  some  temporary  literary  movement  or  leader,  until,  at 
length,  the  question  arises,  whether  we  have  left  us  any 
standard  whatsoever,  literature  being  '■ '  boxed  about ' ' 
in  obedience  to  the  whims  of  this  or  that  disturber  of  the 
peace  of  the  literary  world.  Literary  fashions  there 
may  be,  legitimate  changes  of  the  dress  which  literature 
from  age  to  age  assumes,  in  obedience  to  a  healthy  crit- 
ical and  general  sentiment.  Style  itself  is  but  the  fashion 
of  a  people  or  an  author,  and  may  change  under  nor- 
mal conditions.  The  danger  lies  in  the  direction  of  a 
merely  capricious  and  an  unwarranted  change  in  the  line 
of  the  grotesque  and  eccentric.  There  is  such  a  thing  in 
literature  as  foppery  and  mere  finery,  au  element  of 
cockneyism  and  coquetry,  a  mere  display  of  literary 
wares  for  the  sake  of  the  display.  Careful  observers  of 
the  signs  of  the  times  speak  of  a  manifest  '^  unrest  of 
style, ' '  while  the  varied  expressions  of  such  unrest  are 
almost  endless,  appearing,  at  times,  as  at  the  close  of 
Elizabeth' s  reign,  in  the  guise  of  affectation  and  studied 
ornament  or  in  the  form  of  extreme  literary  vagaries  and 
heresies.  Exaggeration  of  some  sort  they  all  are,  de- 
partures from  a  norm  or  law,  experiments  in  which  the 
veriest  literary   novices    may  figure  conspicuously   as 


350  LITERATURE 

leaders.  When  we  are  told  by  a  competent  observer 
that  now  in  England  we  are  '  ^  too  literary, "  write  too 
much  and  read  too  much,  the  anomalous  statement  finds 
its  force  in  the  fact  that  the  original  standard  of  litera- 
ture has  become  so  modified  and  lowered  that  the  veriest 
tyro  may  easily  conform  to  it,  so  that  we  have  quantity 
rather  than  quality,  imitation  instead  of  originality, 
artifice  in  the  place  of  nature,  and  mere  books  in  the 
place  of  literature  proper.  Genuine  literary  fashions  are 
one  thing;  literary  facts  are  another;  even  tho  great 
names  seem  to  support  and  justify  them. 

Whether  this  decadence  of  standard  is  due,  as  Saints- 
bury  suggests,  to  the  dominance  of  the  modern  society 
novel,  or  as  Collins  suggests,  to  that  of  the  modern  sen- 
sational press,  it  is  a  tendency  demanding  immediate 
check.  There  is  a  normal  standard  in  literature  which 
must  at  all  cost  be  maintained.  Authors  and  readers 
alike  are  committed  to  its  maintenance.  Scholars  at 
large  and,  especially,  literary  scholars,  are  committed  to 
it,  while  literary  institutions  have  a  mission  at  this  point 
second  to  no  other,  and  have  it  in  their  power  thus  to 
transmit  to  those  who  follow  them  an  uncorrupted  body 
of  letters. 


CHAPTER    TEN 

OPEN   QUESTIONS   IN   LITERATURE— II 

In  addition  to  those  already  examined,  we  note  the 
following,  some  of  them  of  a  general  nature  applicable 
to  literature  in  its  widest  sense,  and  some  pertaining  to 
special  forms  and  phases  of  literary  expression.  We 
notice 

I.  The  Relation  of  Literature  as  a  Written  Form  or 
Product  to  the  Oral  Presentation  of  it.  These  are  not 
the  same.  Literature  in  its  specific  sense  is  the  embodi- 
ment of  thought  in  written  form.  To  be  literature  at 
all,  it  must  be  reduced  to  writing.  When  presented 
orally,  it  ceases,  then  and  there,  to  be  literature,  and  be- 
comes a  something  different  by  whatever  name  we  may 
designate  it.  This  difference  is  further  seen  in  the  fact 
that  literary  ability  is  neither  necessarily  nor  historically 
coincident  with  the  ability  to  express  it  in  oral  form.  In 
fact,  they  often  seem  to  exist  in  the  inverse  ratio.  Cer- 
tainly, the  presence  of  the  one  does  not  argue  that  of  the 
other,  nor  are  the  methods  by  which  the  one  is  secured 
or  taught  the  same  as  those  obtaining  in  the  other,  so 
that  we  are  forced  to  the  conclusion,  that  they  are  in 
some  valid  sense  different ;  assume  different  conditions, 
are  dependent  on  different  faculties,  proceed  by  different 
agencies,  and  contemplate  differect  ends.  Thus  Matthews, 
in  his  volume,  ^^The  Historical  Novel,"  in  writing  of 
the  relation  of  the  drama  to  literature,  remarks:  ''Noth- 
ing ought  to  be  clearer  than  the  distinction  between  the 

351 


352  LITERATURE 

written  word  and  the  spoken,  between  the  literature  ad- 
dressed to  the  eye  alone  and  that  which  is  intended  pri- 
marily for  the  ear."  He  quotes  from  Jebb  to  the  effect: 
' '  Much  of  the  ancient  criticism  of  oratory  is  tainted  by 
a  radical  vice,  confounding  literary  merit  with  orator- 
ical merit. ' '  Insistence  is  made  by  critics  on  the  point 
that  the  writer  appeals  to  posterity,  and  the  speaker,  to 
a  present  audience,  and  aims  at  an  immediate  impression, 
so  that  the  great  orations  of  history  must  be  tested,  first 
of  all,  as  to  the  effect  produced  at  the  time  of  their  de- 
livery and  not  by  their  intrinsic  literary  quality.  It  is 
indeed  the  oratorical  quality  in  an  oration  that  gives  it 
power  as  spoken,  so  that  critics  are  misled  who  test  it 
merely  or  mainly  on  literary  grounds.  Some  of  Burke's 
best  orations  fi-om  a  literary  point  of  view  were  failures 
when  delivered.  So  as  to  Isocrates,  the  Greek  orator, 
while  the  speeches  of  Sheridan  were  effective  tho  void  of 
special  literary  merit.  So  as  to  the  sermons  of  White- 
field  and  the  Wesleys.  This  is  not  to  say  that  there  is 
not  a  valid  connection  between  the  written  and  the  oral 
product,  but  that  there  is  a  valid  difference,  also,  even 
tho  in  the  ideal  literary  and  oratorical  production  this 
difference  is  reduced  to  the  minimum.  Hence  it  is  per- 
tinent to  state,  that  the  various  forms  of  Prose  and  Verse 
may  be  classified  as  being  more  or  less  adapted  to  oral 
presentation.  As  a  rule  and  naturally.  Prose  possesses 
more  of  this  adaptability  than  Poetry.  If  we  speak  of 
Prose  as  narrative,  descriptive  and  forensic,  it  is  clear 
that  the  forensic  is  adapted  to  oral  expression,  as  histor- 
ies, sketches  and  essays  are  not.  So,  if  we  classify  verse 
as  Epic,  Dramatic,  Descriptive  and  Lyric,  it  is  equally 
clear  that  the  form  most  adapted  to  oral  embodiment  is 
the  dramatic,  while  the  lyric,  in  so  far  as  it  includes 


OPEN  QUUSTIOm  IN  LITEBATTJBE      353 

Songs,  has  something  of  this  pronounceable  quality.  It 
is  because  Prose  Fiction  has  much  of  the  dramatic  ele- 
ment in  it  that  it  is  seen  to  possess  something  of  this  oral 
adaptability  and  is  more  and  more  presented  in  public 
scenic  form.  In  fine,  there  is  such  a  tyj)e  of  literature 
as  the  oratorical,  and  to  the  degree  in  which  it  is  such  it 
may  be  made  to  assume  the  definite  oral  form.  If  we 
now  inquire  as  to  what  these  Specific  Forms  are  in  which 
literature  easily  assumes  oral  expression,  two  or  three 
of  prominence  are  found. 

1.  The  Oration  as  it  appears  in  manuscript  form,  as 
a  purely  written  product.  Of  all  possible  types  of  ora- 
torical literature,  the  oration  is  the  most  so.  It  is  from 
this  fact  that  it  takes  its  name.  It  may  take  the  type 
of  the  Public  Address,  at  the  behest  of  great  civic  and 
social  interests;  or  it  may  assume  Argumentative  Form, 
as  in  the  Debate  ;  or  Parliamentary  form,  as  on  the 
floor  of  Congress ;  or,  in  Sacred  Discourse,  that  of  the 
Sermon.  In  all  these  classes  of  Oration,  so  essential  is  the 
oratorical  quality,  that  the  writer,  in  their  preparation 
as  literature,  before  they  are  delivered  must  ever  keep 
in  mind  the  fact  of  their  prospective  delivery  and  elab- 
orate them  with  the  audience  in  view.  That  Addresses, 
Debates  and  Sermons  are  often  heard  without  the  least 
impression  is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  their  author  had 
ignored  the  vital  relation  of  literature  to  oratory.  They 
are  composed,  presumably,  not  so  much  as  literature 
proper  for  some  far  distant  effect  and  as  such  to  be  re- 
corded and  preserved  for  the  reference  of  the  reader,  as 
mainly,  if  not  wholly,  for  present  results,  and  fail  of  their 
mission  if  they  do  not  accomplish  them.  Tho,  as  with 
the  orations  of  Cicero  and  "Webster,  a  pronounced  liter- 


354  LITERATURE 

ary  quality  coexists  witli  the  oratorical,  it  is  this  latter 
and  not  the  former  that  is  the  dominant  feature.  When 
the  American  critic  "Whipple  writes  as  he  does  of  Web- 
ster as  a  master  of  English  Style,  it  is,  after  all,  the  ora- 
torical style  that  he  is  emphasizing,  the  close  relation  of 
literature  in  some  of  its  forms  to  oral  expression.  If  we 
go  further  than  this  and  interpret  the  word,  oratorical, 
in  its  widest  meaning,  as  that  which  is  impassioned  and 
impressive,  there  is  a  correct  sense  in  which  all  prose 
literature  that  is  not  miscellaneous  and  didactic  should  be 
to  some  degree  oratorical,  written  for  eifect.  ''Thoughts 
that  breathe  and  words  that  burn ' '  are,  as  such,  orator- 
ical, tho  not  assuming  specific  forensic  form,  while  the 
most  signal  example  of  this  principle  is  seen  in  those  ora- 
tions and  debates  which  were  never  delivered  and  thus 
stand  upon  the  page  as  specimens  of  oratorical  literature. 

2.  The  Play.  Here  we  enter  a  most  inviting  field,  in 
the  careful  survey  of  which  many  questions  of  interest 
arise  as  to  the  relation  of  verse  and  prose,  of  the  drama- 
tist and  actor,  and  of  the  scenic  in  general.  The  matter 
of  interest  that  first  engages  us  is  the  fact  that  dramatic 
verse  is  of  all  the  Forms  the  most  presentable  and  pro- 
nouncable,  has  in  it  most  of  the  actable  qualities,  and  is 
composed  with  primary  reference  to  its  public  presenta- 
tion. It  is  the  most  representable  form  of  verse.  There 
are,  indeed,  unacted  and  unactable  Plays,  the  Closet 
Dramas  of  literature,  as  in  Browning  and  Byron.  They 
are  mere  Dramatic  Monologues,  written  more  from  the 
view-point  of  literary  art  than  from  that  of  oral  exhibi- 
tion. There  are  also  dramas  written  for  the  stage  which, 
however,  never  reach  it,  or,  reaching  it,  are  soon  recalled 
because  they  have  not  the  histrionic  quality.     'Tis  thus 


OPEN  QUESTIONS  IN  LITERATURE      355 

with  some  of  the  Plays  of  Tennyson.  As,  in  prose,  the 
Oration  must  have  something  more  than  mere  literary 
quality  to  make  it  successful  orally,  so,  in  poetry,  the 
Play  must  have  dramatic  or  scenic  quality  as  well  as  lit- 
erary quality,  to  make  it  successful  orally.  It  must  have 
theatric  quality,  that  something  which  adapts  it  to  pub- 
lic recital.  The  first  question  with  the  dramatic  com- 
poser is,  How  can  his  conceptions  be  embodied  in  such 
written  form  as  to  make  them  representable  ?  And  this 
requires  distinctive  genius.  The  mere  division  of  a  Play 
into  Acts  and  Scenes  will  not  do  it.  The  mere  develop- 
ment of  a  Plot  on  toward  a  Catastrophe  will  not  do  it. 
There  is  a  unique  something  below  the  text  and  behind 
all  acts  and  plots  that  gives  tone  to  the  composition,  that 
differentiates  it  at  once  from  the  epic  as  a  narrative  and 
the  lyric  as  a  sentiment,  and  demands  the  stage,  the  actor, 
costume  and  scenery  properly  to  present  it.  Such  a  com- 
position may  or  may  not  be  expressed  in  the  best  literary 
form.  This  is  what  Brunetiere  must  mean  when  he  says 
in  apparently  extreme  manner,  ' '  that  a  Play  is  under  no 
obligation  to  be  literary. "  Even  Shakespeare  and  Mo- 
liere  wrote  their  Plays  as  Plays  and  not  as  mere  litera- 
ture, for  the  auditor  and  not  for  the  reader  only,  and  did 
not  seem  to  care  how  they  read  if  they  succeeded  on  the 
stage.  So  true  is  this  that  the  general  literary  critic  is 
not  always  competent  to  the  judging  of  a  Play.  He  must 
possess  the  dramaturgic  faculty,  as  in  judging  an  Oration 
he  must  possess  the  forensic  faculty.  When  we  are  told 
by  Brunetiere  '  '■  that  a  comedy  has  no  more  call  to  be  lit- 
erary than  a  sermon  has, ' '  we  are  told,  in  effect,  that  the 
comedy  and  the  sermon  depend  for  their  main  effect  on 
other  than  literary  features,  on  the  faculty  of  oral  repre- 
sentation.    One  of  the  prime  factors,  explanatory  of  all 


356  LITEBATUBE 

this,  is  tlie  actor  or  the  orator  in  his  personality,  gesture, 
voice  and  general  manner,  a  factor  so  potential  as  often 
seeming  to  act  in  defiance  of  all  relations  and  making  a 
comparatively  inferior  Speech  or  Play  impressive.  Hence 
we  must  acknowledge  the  presence  and  power  of  the 
Oral  Arts.  There  are  oratorical  Poets  and  Prose  writers, 
and  to  be  j  udged  as  such.  It  has  been  j  ustly  said — ' '  tho 
the  survival  of  a  Play  depends  on  its  literary  quality,  its 
success  depends  on  its  dramatic  quality. ' '  There  are  two 
other  forms  of  literature  that  in  a  modified  way  reveal 
this  relation  between  the  written  and  the  oral. 

3.  The  one  is  the  Novel,  in  so  far  as  dramatized.  The 
Novel  becomes  susceptible  of  oral  embodiment  and  ex- 
pression just  to  the  degree  in  which  it  possesses  the 
inherent  dramatic  element,  while  here,  again,  the  close 
relations  of  prose  and  verse  are  seen.  It  is  in  Prose 
Fiction,  so  called,  that  we  are  now  finding  more  and 
more  of  the  dramatic  quality,  and,  hence,  a  poetic 
quality. 

4.  The  other  form  revealing  this  relation  to  oral  type 
is  Lyric  Verse  in  the  Song  or  Ode,  primarily  prepared 
for  public  recital.  The  Song  is  distinct  from  other  lyrics 
in  that  it  i)ossesses  the  musical  quality,  a  something  that 
fits  it  for  singing.  Here  we  touch  the  borders  at  least  of 
the  difficult  problem  started  by  Poe  and  discussed  by 
Lanier  and  others  as  to  the  exact  relation  of  music  as  an 
art  to  literature.  In  the  Songs  of  the  Shakespearian  and 
European  Drama,  we  find  a  practical  illustration  of  the 
dramatic  and  lyric  combined,  or,  in  such  a  dramatic  lyric 
as  ' '  Comus, ' '  the  Play  or  Masque  and  the  Songs  are  alike 
adapted  to  stage  recital. 


I 


OPEN  QUESTIONS  IN  LITERATURE      357 

Thus,  in  Oration  and  Play  and  Novel  and  Song  we 
note  the  literary  or  written  forms  that  have  in  them  an 
oral  tendency  and  adaptability.  If  we  widen  the  subject 
to  its  utmost  limit,  it  may  be  said  that  this  interaction  of 
the  written  and  oral  may  be  seen  in  all  that  is  properly  in- 
cluded under  the  terms — Prose  and  Poetic  Eecital.  The 
Eecited  Selections  given  us  by  the  elocutionist  or  public 
reader,  gathered  from  the  open  province  of  general  litera- 
ture, serve  in  their  place  to  reveal  this  same  connection. 

II.  The  True  Eelation  of  Literature  and  Style.  This 
is  a  question  naturally  confined  to  the  sphere  of  Prose. 
Literature  is  the  written  product,  the  content  or  subject- 
matter  of  the  author's  work.  Style  is  the  form  or  man- 
ner of  its  expression,  the  mode  of  its  presentation.  From 
the  time  of  Quintilian  down  to  the  modern  school  of 
Bain  and  Spencer,  the  question  has  been  agitated — A\Tiat 
is  the  real  relation  of  the  Product  we  call,  Literature,  to 
the  Presentation  of  it  we  call,  Style.  What  is  the  rela- 
tion of  Thought  to  Language  is  the  philological  form  of 
this  same  question.  The  answer  which  historical  criti- 
cism has  given  has  been  a  twofold  one,  represented,  re- 
spectively, by  some  of  the  ablest  minds,  and  including 
not  only  literary  but  rhetorical  and  linguistic  suggestion. 
These  two  divergent  views  may  be  called,  The  External 
and  Internal  or  the  Esthetic  and  the  Intellectual.  De 
Quincey,  in  his  notable  papers  on  ^^ Language,"  ^'Rhet- 
oric" and  ^' Style"  speaks  of  literature  under  the  two- 
fold order  of  '■ '  Mechanology ' '  and  ' '  Organology. ' '  In 
its  application  to  our  present  purpose,  this  would  mean, 
the  Superficial  and  the  Essential.  The  one  school  holds 
that  the  relation  is  purely  formal  and  unimportant,  and 
the  other,  that  it  is  vital.     On  the  one  side,  are  ranged 


358  LITERATURE 

the  esthetic  critics  of  literature  who  approach  and  exam- 
ine it  through  the  medium  of  the  poetic  imagination  and 
as  a  fine  art  ministrant  to  pleasure  and  artistic  culture. 
With  such  minds,  Style  is  a  more  emphatic  word  than 
Literature  itself,  the  manner  in  which  such  literature  is 
presented  being  all -important.  They  interpret  the  word, 
literary,  as  the  Belles- Lettres  or  Polite  Literature  of  the 
South  European  School,  the  expression  of  ideas  in  at- 
tractive forms.  This  is  the  position  of  such  a  critic  as 
Hugh  Blair  of  Edinburgh.  In  Macaulay,  as  a  literary 
critic,  this  method  is  much  too  prominent,  while  Matthew 
Arnold  and  the  later  school  are  too  often  found  on  this 
side  of  the  critical  line.  Most  of  the  secondary  critics 
of  literature  are  of  this  order,  while  a  large  part  of  the 
hasty  and  misleading  criticisms  of  modern  times  gives 
evidence  of  a  tendency  in  this  direction. 

On  the  other  side,  are  the  philosophic  and  thorough 
students  of  literature,  as  De  Quincey,  Coleridge,  Spencer, 
Lessiug,  Cousin  and  Theremin.  Herbert  Spencer,  in  his 
notable  essay — "The  Philosophy  of  Style,"  assumes  this 
high  position.  '■ '  Form  is  not  form  only, ' '  says  Cousin, 
the  French  critic,  ''it  is  the  form  of  something,  it  un-' 
folds  something  inward."  ''Beauty  is  not  mere  expres- 
sion ;  it  is  the  expression  of  ideas."  These  authors  hold  ^ 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  in  literature  as  Intellectual 
Form ;  that  the  mind  of  the  writer  should  control  his 
method  ;  that  there  is  an  inner  as  well  as  an  outer  form, 
the  form  in  which  the  author  presents  the  subject  to  him- 
self before  he  presents  it  on  the  page  to  the  reader.  It 
is  what  Lathrop  has  called,  "a  sense  of  form."  "The 
words  which  a  man  of  genius  selects,"  says  Mathews, 
"are  as  much  his  own  as  his  thoughts."  They  are  his 
own  just  because  the  ideas  are  his  own.     Language  is 


OPEN  QUESTIONS  IN  LITERATURE      359 

thus  more  than  the  dress  of  thought  or  the  atmosphere 
of  thought  or  the  medium  of  thought.  It  is  its  incarna- 
tion, its  flesh  and  blood,  its  body.  With  these  critics, 
the  word,  Literature,  is  always  emphasized  above  that 
of  style,  which  is  but  the  avenue  of  its  expression.  It  is 
not  so  much  Literature  and  Style  of  which  they  speak  as 
it  is  Literature,  the  one  comprehensive  and  sufficient 
word  which  properly  interpreted  includes  all  that  is 
meant  by  Style  at  its  best.  Between  these  two  theories 
and  their  respective  exponents  there  can  be,  it  would 
seem,  no  serious  difficulty  in  choosing  the  latter,  insist- 
ing that  the  relation  between  authorship  as  a  content  and 
an  expression  should  be  so  intimate  that  the  one  would 
be  found  always  to  involve  the  other. 

If  it  be  asked,  — What  is  the  vital  bond  that  connects 
the  two,  we  answer — The  Personality  of  the  author,  ex- 
pressing itself  continuously  in  the  act  of  authorship  and 
in  the  specific  external  form  which  such  authorship  at 
the  time  assumes.  If,  as  Buffon  tells  us,  ^'The  Style  is 
the  Man  himself, ' '  we  might  reverse  the  statement  and 
affirm  that  the  Man  is  the  Style  itself,  the  one  proposition 
being  as  tenable  as  the  other.  It  is  this  cardinal  doctrine 
of  Literary  Personality  that  goes  far  to  furnish  the 
needed  solution  of  this  problem  and  relegate  this  Open 
Question  to  the  sphere  of  settled  opinions.  Literature  is 
the  product  of  the  author' s  mind,  and  style  is  the  ex- 
pression of  the  author' s  art,  and  they  must  thereby  con- 
dition and  control  each  other.  One  of  the  best  proofs  of 
the  correctness  of  this  conclusion  is  found  in  the  fact  that 
the  best  literary  eras  and  the  greatest  literary  names  best 
evince  it.  It  is  in  Golden  Ages  and  among  the  Master- 
pieces that  we  best  see  its  exemplification,  in  the  Age  of 
Pericles,  Augustus  and  Elizabeth  and  in  the  persons  of 


360  LITERATURE 

Herodotus,  Cicero  and  Milton,  at  which  eras  and  in 
which  authors  Literature  and  Style  are  so  conjoined  that 
no  dividing  line  is  discernible.  It  is  this  principle,  also, 
that  brings  literature  into  harmony  with  all  other  great 
departments  of  human  thought  and  activity,  where  the 
product  and  the  poem  are  not  sharply  differentiated,  but 
are  rightly  viewed  as  a  twofold  expression  of  one  causa- 
tive agency.  As  to  what  is  meant  precisely  by  style  in 
Literature  two  elements  are  noteworthy: 

(a)  The  one  pertains  to  an  author's  vocabulary,  the 
words  he  uses,  their  number  and  character,  their  sources 
and  appropriateness.  Good  Diction  lies  at  the  basis  of 
good  literature  on  the  side  of  style,  so  that  the  aspiring 
author  must  make  a  study  of  it  in  the  light  of  his  con- 
stant needs,  emphasizing  native  words  above  foreign; 
standard  words  above  local  or  provincial;  making  clear- 
ness, vigor  and  good  taste  in  the  use  of  language  a  mat- 
ter of  conscience.  This  is  the  verbal  side  of  literature 
and  all  literary  work. 

(&)  The  other  element  of  Style  is  found  in  the  author's 
Sentences — their  structure  and  use.  Swift's  definition 
of  Style,  ' '  the  right  word  in  the  right  place  "  is  in  point 
here.  The  sentence  must  be  clear,  concise,  vigorous  and 
chaste,  stating  what  and  only  what  the  author  has  to 
say,  and  stating  it  with  force.  Simplicity,  Brevity  and 
Vigor  are  essential  features.  This  is  the  structural  side 
of  literature,  that  which  presents  it  in  good  external 
form.  At  these  two  points,  of  Vocabulary  and  Sentence, 
Literature  and  Style  meet  and  unite  and  can  not  properly 
be  divorced. 


HI.  The  Literary  Spirit — its  nature,  forms  of  expres- 
sion, methods  of  cultivation  and  value,  a  subject  second 


■< 


OPEN  QUESTIONS  IN  LITERATURE      361 

to  none  in  its  interest  and  varied  relations,  forced  upon 
the  attention  of  the  student  of  letters,  and  a  subject 
through  the  full  interpretation  of  which  we  compass,  in 
a  sense,  the  entire  content  of  literary  history. 

As  to  its  Elements  or  Characteristics,  these  may  be 
substantially  expressed  in  the  statement,  that  the  phrase, 
The  Literary  Spirit  is  in  sharp  antithesis  to  Literary 
Technique,  to  the  exact  verbal  statute  as  laid  down  by 
the  schools,  from  which  no  departure  is  supposed  to  be 
allowable.  Tho  the  word,  literature,  in  its  Latin  origin, 
refers  to  that  which  pertains  to  the  letter,  this  current 
use  of  the  term  is  well  understood  and,  in  no  wise,  con- 
travenes the  statement,  that,  in  literature  itself,  the  letter 
may  be  magnified  above  the  spirit  and  the  very  life 
of  literature  be  imperilled.  Here,  as  in  morals,  "the 
letter  killeth. ' '  Hence,  in  all  those  authors  and  eras  in 
which  the  word  or  form  is  exalted  above  the  idea,  and 
style  is  made  an  end  in  itself,  this  antithesis  is  seen  and 
the  result  in  authorship  is  always  evil.  Hence,  in 
periods  of  general  literary  decline,  the  Dark  Ages  of 
Literature,  the  spirit  is  always  in  abeyance  to  the  letter, 
Literary  criticism  is  in  special  danger  here  just  because 
it  is  criticism.  The  literary  judge  sits  down  to  a  work 
that  is  presumably  technical  and,  at  times,  purely  pro- 
fessional, so  that  it  is  manifestly  easy  for  him  to  magnify 
the  analytical  side  of  literature  and  justify  himself  in 
so  doing.  It  is  his  vocation  as  a  censor.  One  of  the 
surest  tests  of  the  critic  is  just  here,  whether  he  is  able 
or  not  to  recognize  and  exalt  the  essential  influence  of 
the  spirit  in  literature  and  subordinate  to  it  all  that  is 
merely  verbal  and  technical;  whether  he  understands  the 
difference  between  literary  appreciation  or  mere  literary 
exposition;  between  the  interpretation  of  literature  in 


3G2  LITEBATUBE 

its  catholicity  and  generic  elements  and  mere  literary 
comment  and  exegesis.  There  is  another  province  in 
which  this  error  is  particularly  easy  and  prevalent,  in 
what  may  be  called,  Educational  Literature,  in  Literary 
Manuals  and  Theses,  in  which  the  author  as  an  educator 
is  so  intent  upon  the  purely  pedagogic  side  of  his  work 
as  to  exalt  it  above  all  due  limits  and  present  a  i)roduct 
to  the  student  which  is  not,  in  any  valid  sense,  litera- 
ture at  all.  "We  speak  of  a  body  of  literature.  From 
this  point  of  view,  it  is  all  body,  absolutely  soulless  and 
lifeless.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  here  lies  the  perilous 
temptation  of  the  university  class-room,  as  a  place  for 
literary  study  and  teaching,  lest  literature  be  conceived 
of  and  taught  as  a  purely  scholastic  subject,  amenable  to 
the  most  formal  exactions  of  the  curriculum.  It  required 
all  the  courage  of  a  Longfellow  and  a  Lowell  as  profes- 
sional educators  to  escape  this  pedagogic  peril  and  teach 
literature  in  a  literary  way  as  they  themselves  under- 
stood and  applied  it.  If  it  be  asked,  more  specifically, 
just  what  is  the  main  Element  or  characteristic  of  the 
Literary  Spirit,  the  answer  would  best  be  expressed  in 
the  word.  Spontaneity,  as  it  appears  in  thought  and  lan- 
guage, in  word  and  sentence,  in  method  and  product,  in 
all  that  pertains  to  the  author's  preparation  and  presen- 
tation of  his  subject.  This  means  a  sane  and  normal 
liberty  of  action,  personal  freedom  within  the  well  under- 
stood conditions  and  limitations  of  literary  law.  It  is 
what  Emerson  calls,  atmosphere  and  amplitude,  space 
in  which  to  think  and  write  at  pleasure,  absolutely  un- 
hampered by  any  of  the  artificial  canons  of  the  schools. 
Not  only  is  there  such  a  princii)le  as  Poetic  License,  well  | 
understood  by  the  poet  and  in  no  sense  conflicting  with  f 
well  established  poetic  statute,  there  is  a  Prose  License,  ' 


OPEN  QUESTIONS  IN  LITEBATUBE      363 

also,  a  general  Literary  License,  conceding  to  the  man 
of  letters  as  sncli  a  larger  share  of  freedom  than  would 
be  accorded  the  scientific  or  technical  student.  He  is  to 
have  ''ample  room  and  verge  enough"  for  the  proper 
exercise  of  imagination  and  feeling,  as  distinct  from  the 
exercise  of  the  logical  and  critical  faculties,  where  nar- 
rower limits  are  supposed  to  exist.  It  is  clear  that  any- 
thing like  Genius  in  literature  must  have  such  scope,  in 
order  to  effect  the  ends  of  high  endowment.  Spontaneity 
of  mental  action  is  indeed  but  another  name  for  inspira- 
tion in  authorship. 

As  to  the  expression  of  this  Literary  Spirit  historically 
in  authorship  and  the  reasons  for  its  growth  or  decline, 
various  conditions  are  seen  to  exist.  There  are  authors 
not  a  few  in  whose  personality  and  work  it  is  but  inci- 
dentally present,  or  in  whom  it  but  rarely,  if  at  all,  comes 
to  any  special  prominence.  This  fact  alone  would  assign 
them  to  the  list  of  the  secondary  writers.  There  are 
other  authors  whose  work  is  marked  by  its  presence  and 
in  communion  with  whom  we  are  never  inclined  to  think 
of  the  mere  letter  and  the  statute,  and  these  are  the  mas- 
ters, old  and  modern.  There  are  also  entire  peoples  who 
as  clearly  evince  its  presence  or  absence.  In  the  one 
case,  literature  seems  to  be  a  natural  instinct  or  habit, 
and,  in  the  other,  an  exotic,  transplanted  and  superin- 
duced, partaking  of  all  the  features  of  a  foreign  growth. 
It  is  an  after-thought.  A  contrast  between  European 
and  Oriental  Literature  would  sufficiently  confirm  this 
fact,  as  within  the  limits  of  Europe  itself  it  is  illustrated. 
So,  within  the  limits  of  any  separate  nation,  there  are 
special  periods  of  authorship  which  evince,  respectively, 
its  presence  or  absence.  Occasionally,  a  distinctively 
literary  era,  marked  by  freshness,  vitality  and  vigor  and 


364  LITERATURE 

a  large  amount  of  original  production  is  closely  followed 
by  one  as  clearly  marked  by  literary  servility  and  the 
reign  of  mediocrity.  This  is  on  the  principle  of  action 
and  reaction.  Still  again,  there  are  Institutions  that  are 
specifically  literary  and  so  designated,  while  not  a  few 
belie  their  name  by  the  conspicuous  absence  of  any  such 
feature.  It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  expect  that  in  all  in- 
stitutions of  liberal  learning  in  the  Modern  European 
world,  this  Literary  Spirit  should  be  present  in  some 
substantive  measure.  In  the  very  word,  Liberal,  Spon- 
taneity and  Scope  are  essentially  involved.  In  so  far, 
therefore,  as  in  these  centers  of  learning,  literature  is 
made  a  subject  of  study,  it  should  be  such  ia  its  most 
vigorous  forms  and  impart  life  and  character  to  the 
entire  university  curriculum.  Literary  Institutions 
should  be  pervaded  by  a  profound  literary  impulse ; 
should  be  centers  of  literary  influence ;  aflame  with 
literary  zeal,  and,  thus,  be  potent  factors  in  preserving 
and  perpetuating  the  literary  repute  of  peoples  or  lan- 
guages. 

As  to  the  means  by  which  such  a  spirit  may  best  be 
secured,  developed  and  maintained,  there  are  two  that 
are  peculiarly  essential — Absorption  in  Literary  Work, 
and  Contact  with  Literary  Influences.  The  litarary  man 
must  keep  in  touch  with  literature,  with  its  production 
and  those  who  produce  it,  with  literary  scenes  and  sur- 
roundings, with  the  leaders  and  the  landmarks  of  litera- 
ture, with  the  best  books  and  the  best  literary  ideals. 
There  is  a  philosophic  principle  that  is  here  involved — 
that  of  mental  affinity,  induced  and  increased  by  contact. 
We  speak  of  Literary  Influence.  It  is  this  influence 
which  is  the  direct  result  of  literary  activity  and  associa- 
tion, strengthening  and  deepening  with  the  years,  and  in 


OPEN  QUESTIONS  IN  LITERATURE      365 

which  there  is  a  mutual  giving  and  receiving.  All  this 
is  true,  and  yet  it  can  not  be  concealed  that  the  literary- 
spirit  in  its  best  elements  and  expression  is  a  gift  of  the 
gods,  an  inheritance,  innate  and  connate,  and  thus  an 
organic  part  of  the  author's  personality  as  a  man,  his 
personality  itself.  Tho  in  a  sense  and  to  a  degree  it  may 
be  cultivated,  even  here  the  primal  factors  of  it  must 
already  exist,  if  there  is  to  be  any  pronounced  develop- 
ment of  it.  It  is  the  very  last  literary  product  or  char- 
acteristic that  can  be  procured  at  call  or  made  to  appear 
by  any  i^rescribed  process.  It  requires  but  the  casual 
glance  of  him  who  possesses  it  to  note  in  any  book,  au- 
thor, period  or  people  whether  it  exist  as  a  natural  en- 
dowment or  whether  it  exist  as  a  product  of  education. 
Here,  as  everywhere,  it  is  seen  that  nature  is  the  best 
guide,  while,  in  so  far  as  nature  may  be  suj)plemented  by 
other  agencies,  such  agencies  must  be  marked  by  natural- 
ness.    Any  forced  process  is  out  of  place. 

As  to  the  value  of  such  a  Spirit,  individual  or  national, 
but  little  need  be  said,  for  it  is  the  spirit  that  giveth  life, 
and  where  the  spirit  is  there  is  also  liberty.  What 
Courthope  calls.  The  Liberal  Movement  in  English  Let- 
ters, is  this  movement  of  the  spirit,  an  unmistakable  sign 
of  life.  What  modern  critics  are  so  fond  of  calling.  Lit- 
erature and  Life,  is  but  another  name  for  its  manifest 
presence.  There  is  a  spirit  in  man  and  there  is  a  spirit 
in  literature,  shaping  and  controlling  all  that  is  embodied 
and  making  it  effective  over  men.  Whatever  we  name 
it,  genius,  inspiration,  ^^the  union  and  the  faculty  di- 
vine," originality,  instinct,  creative  power,  it  is  a  sub- 
conscious something  beneath  the  letter,  which  makes 
the  letter  what  it  is,  and  apart  from  which  it  lies 
inert  upon  the  page.     So   indispensable   is  it  that  all 


366  LITEEATJJBE 

high  literature  may  be  said  to  postulate  it.  It  is  a  pre- 
requisite to  its  being, — its  soul  and  sustenance.  By  this 
test  as  by  no  other  may  the  present  status  and  the  prom- 
ise of  literature  be  determined  among  modern  states  and 
peoples. 


CHAPTEE  ELEVEN 

HEBRAISM  AND  HELLENISM   IN   LITERATURE 

In  a  very  interesting  book  entitled,  ' '  Social  Ideals  in 
English  Letters,"  the  accomplished  authoress  writes  as 
follows: — '^  With  that  instinct  for  large  historical  views 
which  Matthew  Arnold  probably  inherited  from  his 
father,  he  sought  in  the  past  for  a  great  expression  of  the 
attitude  he  admired.  He  found  it  in  the  spirit  of  Greece, 
and,  following  a  hint  of  Heine's,  he  adopted  the  distinc- 
tion between  Hellenism  and  Hebraism  and  made  of  it 
the  center  and  pivot  in  his  interpretation  of  English  life. 
It  was,  of  course,  Hellenism  which  he  sought  to  foster; 
Hellenism,  with  its  stress  on  intelligence  and  gentleness, 
its  demand  for  sincerity  of  thought  rather  than  of  heart. 
The  uppermost  idea  with  Hellenism  is  to  see  things  as 
they  really  are;  the  uppermost  idea  with  Hebraism  is 
conduct  and  obedience.  Energy  driving  at  practise  is 
not  lacking  in  the  English  people,  but  the  intelligence 
driving  at  those  ideas  which  are,  after  all,  the  basis  of 
right  practise  is  wofully  absent  among  them."  Thus 
has  Matthew  Arnold  developed  Heine's  suggestion  and 
carried  it  much  farther  than  his  German  original  did  or 
intended  to  do,  and  in  the  elaboration  of  it  has  evinced 
much  of  that  very  prejudice,  narrowness  of  view,  and 
mental  and  literary  dogmatism  which  he  considers  essen- 
tially Hebraic  in  origin  and  type.  One  queries,  at  the 
outset,  by  what  right  Mr.  Arnold  is  empowered  to  attri- 
bute the  monopoly  of  "intelligence  and  gentleness  and 
sincerity  of  thought  "  to  the  Hellenic  race;  to  insist  that 

367 


368  LITERATURE 

in  Hellenism  alone  one  sees  things  really  as  they  are. 
"With  equal  surprise  the  question  may  be  raised  why  to 
Hellenism  itself  there  should  not  be  credited,  to  some 
extent,  that  gravity  of  character  and  practical  energy 
which  the  English  critic  attributes  to  Hebraism  only. 
It  is  strange  enough  that  an  accomplished  Greek  scholar 
could  rise  from  the  reading  of  the  great  Greek  epics  and 
tragedies  and  underrate  that  essential  seriousness  of 
narrative  and  scene  which  is  inseparably  connected  with 
the  highest  Greek  poetry.  Despite  all  inconsistency, 
however,  the  contrast  has  become  historic  and  pervades 
the  content  of  modern  English  criticism.  Literature, 
Mr.  Arnold  teaches  us,  is  Hebraic  in  its  type  or  it  is 
Hellenic.  Emi)hasizing,  therefore,  the  specific  sense 
which  the  great  English  essayist  attached  to  these  respec- 
tive terms,  it  is  in  place  to  mark,  first  of  all,  the  Dis- 
tinguishing Features  of  Hebraism  and  Hellenism  in 
literature  as  thus  interpreted,  so  as  to  secure  a  correct 
understanding  of  the  theory  in  question.  In  the  one, 
Character,  we  are  told,  is  the  dominant  idea;  in  the 
other.  Culture.  In  the  one,  ^^ strictness  of  conscience" 
is  the  phrase;  in  the  other,  '^ spontaneity  of  conscious- 
ness." In  the  one,  we  hear  of  "Energy" ;  in  the  other, 
of  "Intelligence."  So,  on  the  one  hand,  are  such  terms 
as — Feeling,  Force,  Conduct  and  Gravity;  on  the  other, 
Thought,  Art,  Grace,  Aspiration  and  Cheerfulness.  The 
one  is  theological  and  biblical;  the  other,  classical  and 
secular,  and,  indeed,  as  Mr.  Arnold  would  urge,  the  one 
is  uninteresting  and  undesirable,  while  the  other  is 
attractive  and  inspiring.  These  are  some  of  the  con- 
trasts of  the  English  author's  favorite  theory  on  which 
he  sounds  the  note  unceasingly,  nor  does  he  allow  us  to 
forget  that  the  Hebraic  element  in  literature  is  out  of 


SEBBAI8M  AND  HELLENISM  369 

good  form  among  the  literary  elite,  the  property  of  the 
Philistines,  a  literary  cult  out  of  which  an  ambitious 
student  should  seduously  educate  himself  by  sitting  at 
the  feet  of  the  Grecian  oracles  to  learn  what  wisdom 
really  is.  Hence  it  is  that  in  such  works  as  ' '  God  and 
the  Bible,"  '^  Saint  Paul  and  Protestantism,"  this  anti- 
Hebraic  bias  is  kept  prominent,  as  it  is,  also,  in  such 
treatises  as  '^Literature  and  Dogma,"  and  ''Last Essays 
on  the  Church  and  Religion."  The  American  Poe  held 
a  somewhat  similar  theory  in  what  he  called,  "The 
Heresy  of  the  Didactic, ' '  insisting  that  poetry,  as  such, 
had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  duty  or  truth.  Truth, 
he  insisted,  belongs  to  the  intellect;  duty,  to  the  con- 
science; and  beauty,  to  the  taste;  the  only  difference 
between  Arnold  and  Poe  being  that  the  British  critic 
applied  his  principle  to  all  departments  of  authorship. 
It  requires  but  a  cursory  examination  of  this  theory  of 
literature  to  discover  that  it  is  superficial  and  untenable, 
representing  but  one  side  of  a  very  important  and  many- 
sided  question  and  shutting  the  student  up  to  an  alter- 
native to  which  he  should  not  be  confined.  It  is  the 
central  imperfection  of  Arnold's  work  as  a  critic  that  he 
has  thus  insisted  on  an  antithesis  where  none  in  reality 
exists,  and  has  started  many  a  question  which  it  is  as 
impossible  to  solve  as  it  is  useless  to  attempt  to  solve. 
Hence,  we  are  forced  to  such  an  extreme  inquiry  as 
this — What  is  the  final  purpose  of  literature — char- 
acter or  culture;  feeling  or  intelligence;  action  or  art — 
a  question  as  irrational  as  it  is  insoluble.  The  literary 
student  is  not  to  be  placed  in  any  such  attitude,  but 
may  have  a  wider  outlook  and  a  broader  theory.  It  is 
significant  to  note  that  in  the  study  of  Arnold's  mind 
and  method  he  had  abundant  opportunity  to  correct 


370  LITEBATUEE 

this  one-sided  view  of  letters,  had  lie  been  so  inclined. 
In  England  and  America,  some  of  his  warmest  admirers 
were  not  slow  in  exposing  the  error  of  his  position 
and  intimating  to  him  the  need  of  its  substantial  modi- 
fication. Such  suggestion,  however,  seemed  but  to 
deepen  his  hold  upon  his  accepted  views.  Students  of 
Arnold  who  have  insisted  upon  his  intellectual  narrow- 
ness and  bigotry  have  been  justified,  at  this  point,  in 
their  position.  It  did  not  seem,  indeed,  to  lie  within 
the  scope  of  his  ken  as  a  thinker  to  rise  above  or  break 
away  from  this  restricted  view  of  literature  in  which  he 
had  but  little  company.  It  was  in  the  sphere  of  educa- 
tion only  that  he  seemed  to  be  free  from  this  dogmatic 
temper  and  to  display  catholicity  of  reasoning. 

The  saner  and  broader  view  of  literature  combines  the 
Hebraic  and  the  Hellenic  and  insists  upon  their  unity 
and  interaction  as  fundamental,  while  in  no  sense  failing 
to  attribute  to  each  element  that  which  properly  belongs 
thereto.  The  question,  now,  is  not — the  Hebraic  or  the 
Hellenic — the  ethical  or  the  esthetic.  The  only  legiti- 
mate question  is — How,  in  any  given  school,  or  style  or 
period  or  writer  each  is  jjresent  in  vital  form,  as  contri- 
buting to  the  same  great  end,  the  expression  of  the  truth 
for  the  best  effects.  It  is  this  fusion  of  the  two  types 
that  the  poet  Keats,  himself  an  accomplished  Hellenist, 
has  in  mind  when  he  says, — '^Beauty  is  Truth  and  Truth 
is  Beauty."  Euskin,  an  artist  on  principle  and  by  pro- 
fession, tells  us,  that  '^  moral  sublimity  is  essential  to  the 
appreciation  of  beauty. ' '  The  high  theory  of  Plato  ' '  that 
all  beauty  is  mental  or  spiritual ' ' ;  and  of  Leibnitz,  ' '  that 
beauty  consists  in  perfection ' ' ;  and  of  Hegel,  ' '  that  it 
consists  in  character  and  expression,"  is  in  the  same 
direction  of  this  combination  of  the  ethic  and  esthetic. 


HEBBAISM  AND  HELLENISM  371 

To  the  same  effect  a  recent  American  critic  writes — 
"Tliere  is  no  necessary  connection  between  literature 
and  righteousness,  but  literature  does  not  lend  itself  to 
the  service  of  evil  as  readily  as  other  art  forms,  notably 
music  and  painting,  do."  This  is  the  same  as  saying 
that  there  is  no  natural  or  necessary  antagonism  between 
good  taste  and  good  morals  ;  that  the  best  things  should 
be  current  alike  in  Athens  and  Jerusalem,  and  that  the 
author  who  attempts  to  divorce  things  that  are  accordant 
is  unwise  therein  and  goes  far  out  of  his  way  to  confirm 
a  preconceived  opinion.  It  would  be  an  interesting 
study  to  apply  these  principles  within  the  domain  of 
English  Letters  ;  to  note  how  each  of  these  factors,  the 
Hebraic  and  the  Hellenic,  has  had  its  ardent  exponents, 
and  how  the  fusion  of  the  two  has,  also,  had  its  equally 
ardent  advocates.  If  we  illustrate  by  a  reference  to  the 
Schools  of  English  Verse,  we  note  the  Oriental  and  the 
Greek.  The  one  is  biblical  in  its  origin,  development 
and  aims,  having  in  it  a  supernatural  element  and  spirit, 
and  might  be  included,  as  a  study,  among  the  Divinities. 
The  other  is  pagan  and  secular,  wherein  the  natural  and 
earthly  obtain,  and  is  included  among  the  Humanities. 
It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  abuse  of  the  Oriental  might  lead 
to  mysticism,  and  that  of  the  Greek  to  sensualism.  Each 
of  them  seeks  perfection ;  the  perfection,  however,  re- 
spectively, of  the  soul  and  the  taste,  and  between  these 
two  there  is  a  ^' a  great  gulf  fixed"  by  the  extremists, 
and  by  them  only. 

If  we  illustrate  by  a  reference  to  Periods,  we  are  told 
that  the  first  is  the  Puritan  Era  of  English  Letters,  and 
the  second,  the  Augustan  ;  the  eras,  respectively,  of  con- 
science and  taste  ;  the  former  being  regarded  by  the  fol- 
lowers of  Arnold  as  too  Hebraic  to  be  interesting.    Taine 


372  LITEBATVBE 

is  never  weary  of  drawing  this  extreme  antithesis  and  of 
insisting  that  this  Puritanic  type  is  far  too  pronounced 
in  British  authorship.  He  sees  it  in  the  influence  of  the 
great  English  Eeformation  on  Elizabethan  Letters ;  in 
the  early  history  of  the  Eomantic  School  when  such 
sober-minded  authors  as  Cowper  and  Coleridge  con- 
served it ;  while  far  on  in  the  Victorian  Era  he  discov- 
ers its  presence  in  the  Brownings  and  the  lamented  Lau- 
reate. It  is  in  writing  of  this  Puritan  period  and  type 
that  he  says — "  N'o  culture  here,  no  philosophy,  no  senti- 
ment of  harmonious  and  pagan  beauty.  Conscience  only 
spoke,  and  its  restlessness  had  become  a  terror.  They 
steeped  themselves  in  texts  of  St.  Paul,  in  the  thunder- 
ing menaces  of  the  prophets.  The  external,  natural  man 
is  abolished  ;  only  the  inner  and  spiritual  man  survives," 
and  he  adds — ' '  That  was  not  a  conception  of  life  from 
which  a  genuine  literature  might  be  expected  to  issue. 
The  idea  of  the  beautiful  is  wanting,  and  what  is  a  liter- 
ature without  it?  The  natural  expression  of  the  heart's 
emotions  is  prescribed  and  what  is  a  literature  without 
it  %  They  abolished  as  impious  the  rich  poesy  which  the 
Eenaissance  had  brought  them.  They  are  without  style 
and  speak  like  business  men.  The  Puritan  destroys  the 
artist  and  fetters  the  writer. ' '  This  is  simply  the  old 
fight  between  the  Hebraist  and  the  Hellenist,  conducted 
in  a  partisan  spirit  and  to  effect  a  specific  end  on  behalf 
of  a  one-sided  theory.  With  Taine,  as  with  Arnold  and 
Poe,  one-eyed  criticism  leads  to  obscure  views  of  truth. 
Hence,  the  illustration  which  they  give  us  of  this  extreme 
theory  in  specific  English  authors  is  here  in  place.  First 
among  the  Hebraists,  of  course,  and  the  greatest  sinners 
of  them  all  are  Bunyan  and  Milton.  ' '  Strictly  speak- 
ing," writes  Taine,  ^'the  Puritans  could  have  but  one 


EEBBAmM  AND   HELLENISM  373 

poet,  an  involuntary  poet,  a  madman,  a  martyr,  a  hero, 
and  a  victim  of  grace  ;  a  genuine  preacher  who  attains 
the  beautiful  by  accident  while  pursuing  the  useful  on 
principle.  If  he  had,  at  ten  years  of  age,  a  Puritan 
tutor,  the  world  rejoices  that,  soon  after,  he  enjoyed  the 
tuition,  at  Saint  Paul's  school,  of  an  accomplished  class- 
icist." He  speaks  of  him  as  a  ''poet  buried  under  a 
Puritan, ' '  the  author  of  ' '  the  Protestant  epic  of  damna- 
tion and  grace,  in  spite  of  his  Calvinistic  dogmas  and  the 
vision  of  Saint  John  the  Divine. ' '  Milton,  he  concedes, 
was  a  great  poet  but  in  spite  of  his  Hebraic  type,  and 
only  because  of  his  study  of  Polite  Letters  at  Cambridge 
and  his  familiarity  with  the  classics.  It  is  not  a  little 
amusing  to  see  how  Mr.  Taine  grapples  with  the  prob- 
lem of  accounting  for  such  Hebraism  and  such  literary 
merit  in  the  same  personality.  He  solves  the  syllogism 
by  begging  the  question.  So,  as  to  Bunyan,  he  ad- 
mits, that,  Puritan  tho  he  was,  he  was  a  poet  in  prose, 
but  "  a  poet  because  he  was  a  child,"  innocent  enough 
of  all  classical  culture  and  ignorant  enough  of  the  wisdom 
of  the  world  to  be  the  appropriate  subject  of  over- wrought 
imagination,  credulity,  hallucination  and  special  super- 
natural influence,  a  child  of  nature  and  of  grace,  the 
author  of  a  widely  current  literature  in  spite  of  the  ab- 
sence of  all  literary  training,  so  that  "under  his  sim- 
plicity you  will  find  power,  and  in  his  personality  the 
vision  of  sin  and  grace. ' '  From  the  same  point  of  view, 
Addison  and  Cowper  are  too  Hebraic  as  contrasted  with 
such  Hellenic  authors  as  Keats  and  Laudor  and  SheUey. 
According  to  Arnold,  such  works  as  "The  Pilgrim's 
Progress,"  "Paradise  Lost,"  "The  Task,"  and  the 
Moral  Essays  of  "The  Spectator"  might  have  been 
written  in  Palestine,  but  "Endymion,"  "  The  Hellenics, " 


374  LITERATURE 

' '  The  Essays  of  Elia, "  '^  Childe  Harold ' '  and  '  ^  Queen 
Mab ' '  create  a  fresher  air  and  belong  to  the  literature 
of  life  and  modern  thought.  They  are  absolutely  devoid 
of  the  Judaic  type  and  have  the  genuinely  Gentile  cast 
of  Attica  and  the  ^gean.  "Culture,"  writes  Arnold, 
''has  one  great  passion — the  passion  for  sweetness  and 
light."  This  passion,  he  contends,  is  mainly,  if  not 
wholly,  Hellenic.  Even  so  conservative  and  just  a  critic 
as  Dowden  speaks  of  Bunyan's  great  Allegory  as  "The 
Prose-Epic  of  English  Hebraism."  If,  now,  we  seek 
for  concrete  illustrations  of  the  better  theory  which  rep- 
resents these  two  types  in  combination  and  mutual  inter- 
action, the  theory  of  Hebraism  and  Hellenism  in  fusion, 
there  is  no  need  that  we  sharply  contrast  the  Oriental  or 
Biblical  School  with  the  Classical  or  Pagan,  or  either  of 
these  with  the  Gothic  or  Northern  type,  as  seen  in 
"Beowulf,"  but  there  is  need  of  emphasizing  such  a 
literary  order  as  The  Lake  School  of  English  Poets, 
marked  alike  by  the  Hebraic  and  the  Hellenic,  true  to 
the  best  interests  of  English  character  and  English  cul- 
ture, in  the  writings  of  whose  best  exponents  we  are 
reminded  both  of  the  English  Church  and  the  English 
University.  It  is  with  this  in  mind  that  Devey  writes — 
' '  In  the  nineteenth  century,  the  old  schools  have  been 
found  in  connection  with  new  combinations;  the  natural 
with  the  philosophic;  the  romantic  with  the  realistic; 
the  pagan  with  the  Christian;  the  esthetic  with  the  prac- 
tical." In  a  word,  types  are  fused,  and  the  union  is 
conducive  to  strength.  On  this  better  theory,  no  one 
would  think  of  placing  Keats  and  Scott,  Browning  and 
Tennyson  in  opposition,  but  would  rather  aim  to  show 
that  as  representative  poets  they  all  illustrate  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  poetic  art,  and  are,  also,  true  to  the 


HEBBA8IM  AND  HELLENmU  375 

deepest  religious  instincts  of  the  race;  Hebraic  and  Hel- 
lenic alike,  even  tho  one  type,  in  given  cases,  and  for 
good  reasons,  may  be  more  prominent  than  another. 
So,  as  to  Periods,  we  are  not  obliged  to  set  off  the  Puri- 
tan Age  in  shari^est  contrast  with  the  Augustan  and  seek 
to  force  a  literary  feud  between  them,  but  we  are  to  em- 
phasize the  historic  place  and  value  of  such  an  age  as 
The  Victorian,  in  which  Hebraism  and  Hellenism  alike 
are  found  conjoined,  each  element  lending  invaluable 
support  to  the  other,  and  together  effecting  results  im- 
possible to  either  alone.  The  Elizabethan  Age  was  alike 
the  Hebraic  Age  of  the  great  Protestant  Eeformation 
and  the  Hellenic  Age  of  the  Eevival  of  Classical  Learn- 
ing, nor  is  it  necessary  for  the  civil  or  literary  historian 
to  seek  to  state  which  of  these  elements  was  predominant. 
It  was  largely  the  Golden  Age  that  it  was  by  reason  of 
this  cooperative  action  of  types  of  thought  and  letters 
and  life.  Even  in  the  non-Hebraic  and  sensuous  age  of 
the  Eestoration,  John  Milton,  a  Puritan  of  the  Puritans, 
lived  and  wrote  epics  and  lyrics  so  involving  the  Hebraic 
and  Hellenic  as  to  defy  the  keenest  analyst  to  distinguish 
them.  Throughout  the  Pagan  Period  of  English  Let- 
ters, a  clearly  defined  line  of  the  Hebraic  is  visible. 

So,  as  to  Authors  and  Writings,  our  attention  is  not 
now  directed  to  poets  and  prose  writers  who  represent 
an  exclusive  tendency  either  way,  but  to  those  who  alike 
in  personality  and  work  represent  this  dual  unity  of  con- 
science and  culture,  of  feeling  and  intelligence,  of  reality 
and  ideality.  Nor  have  we  far  to  go  to  find  them,  inas- 
much as  most  of  the  greatest  names  of  English  Letters 
are  found  in  this  honored  list,  much  of  their  greatness 
lying  in  this  natural  coordination  of  things  that  are 
accordant.     These  are  Chaucer,  Spenser,  Coleridge  and 


376  LITEBATUBE 

De  Quincey,  Burke  and  Tennyson  and  Lowell  and  Emer- 
son, it  being  as  difficult  as  it  is  unnecessary  to  state 
which  of  these  types  predominates  in  their  work,  each  of 
them  seeking  in  his  way  the  interests  of  truth  and  the 
highest  ends  of  art  and  taste.  Still  further,  and  despite 
the  objections  of  Arnold  and  the  extremists,  such  repre- 
sentative names  as  Lamb  and  Euskin  belong  with  equal 
justice  to  this  category,  it  being  as  unjust  to  confine 
Milton  to  the  Hebraic  order  as  Euskin  to  the  Hellenic. 
Strangely  enough,  there  is  a  true  sense  in  which  even 
Arnold  himself  illustrates  the  error  of  his  extreme  posi- 
tion, and  confirms  the  true  view,  his  best  writings  being 
alike  characterized  by  Hebraic  sobriety  and  Hellenic 
taste.  Certainly,  no  candid  critic  would  underrate  in 
his  writings  the  presence  of  classical  taste,  of  Hellenism 
in  its  finest  form, — a  feature  which  it  was  the  ideal  of 
his  life  to  exhibit  and  without  the  acknowledgement  of 
which  his  works  can  not  be  understood.  Almost  equally 
prominent,  however,  is  his  gravity,  so  that,  by  common 
consent,  he  has  been  included  among  the  contemplative 
poets  of  England.  It  is  a  canon  of  style  on  which  he  in- 
sists, that  authorship  must  have  "moral  fiber,"  that  the 
flippant  and  frivolous  are  unliterary  forms  of  prose  and 
verse  and,  as  such  "have  no  place  in  literature."  He 
earnestly  pleads  for  the  dominance  of  "  intellectual  seri- 
ousness" in  authors,  while  the  careful  reader  of  his 
works  must  be  impressed  with  the  almost  biblical  sedate- 
ness  with  which  he  discusses  his  theories  and  pens  his 
productions.  So  pronounced,  indeed,  is  this  Hebraic 
soberness  that  we  see  it  pass,  at  times,  from  grave  to 
graver  forms,  until,  at  length,  it  takes  on  a  specifically 
despondent  type.  Professor  Dowdeu,  in  his  recent  vol- 
ume,   ' '  The   Puritan    and    Anglican, ' '    thus    correctly 


SEBBAI8M  AND  HELLENISM  377 

states  it — '"Tho  Matthew  Arnold  said  hard  things  of 
English  Protestantism,  the  son  of  Thomas  Arnold  could 
not  escape  from  an  hereditary  influence;  the  Hellenic 
tendency  in  his  poetry  is  constantly  checked  and  con- 
trolled by  the  Hebraic  tendency. ' '  The  same  continuous 
influence  is  manifest  in  his  prose.  "Were  it  not  that  he 
insists  on  being  classified  with  the  Hellenists  only,  we 
should  include  him  in  the  wider  circle. 


So,  as  to  "Writings,  we  may  cite  ^ '  The  Faerie  Queen 


''The  Ancient  Mariner" ;  the  Essays  by  De  Quincey  on 
''Caesar"  and  " Machiavelli " ;  "The  Excursion"; 
"The  Lives  of  the  English  Poets" ;  "The  Essay  on  the 
Sublime";  "The  Eing  and  The  Book";  "  The  Drama 
of  Exile";  "In  Memoriam";  "Evangeline";  "The 
Cathedral";  "The  Scarlet  Letter,"  and  "Eepresenta- 
tive  Men,"  as  expressive  alike  of  conscience  and  culture. 
Nothing  is  gained  on  behalf  of  either  type  by  widening 
the  distance  between  them. 

If  it  be  asked  what  is  the  present  tendency  in  English 
Letters,  we  note,  that  it  is  toward  the  Hellenic,  as  com- 
pared with  the  preceding  Georgian  type.  Stedman  calls 
it, — "the  more  restrained,  scholarly,  analytic,  artistic 
period,"  much  of  this  tendency  being  due,  we  may  add, 
to  the  commanding  influence  of  the  late  Laureate. 

Two  or  three  suggestions  of  practical  moment  emerge 
from  this  discussion — 

(a)  The  first  is,  that  Hebraism  and  Hellenism  must 
always  be  found  in  some  substantive  sense  in  every  high 
literature.  "We  need  not  agree  as  to  the  comparative 
measure  of  their  presence,  but  that  each  must,  in  some 
well -understood  sense,  be  present,  sufficiently  so  to  be 
influential  in  the  literature.  Authorship  must  have 
character  and  culture,  conscience  and  taste.     "We  might 


378  LITEBATUBE 

assert  in  biblical  terms  that  every  literature,  however 
specifically  national  and  individual,  must  have  room  for 
the  Jew  and  Greek.  Even  a  pagan  literature,  as  the 
Greek  itself,  must  be,  to  some  degree,  an  ethical  litera- 
ture, even  as  the  old  literatures  of  the  North,  the  Gothio 
and  the  Scandinavian,  with  all  their  ruggedness  of  form 
and  expression,  must  have  a  degree  of  refinement  to  en- 
title them  to  the  name,  literature.  So,  every  author, 
whatever  his  dominant  type,  must  be  both  Hebraic  and 
Hellenic.  ^'If  Hellenism  served  to  broaden,  Hebraism 
served  to  deepen  the  national  consciousness  of  England," 
writes  Dowden.  This  may  be  said  of  every  literature 
and  every  author. 

(Jb)  Hebraism  and  Hellenism  do  not,  however,  express 
the  sum-total  of  literature. — Herein  Mr.  Arnold  is  at 
fault,  as  also,  not  a  few  of  his  forerunners  and  followers. 
Character  and  Culture  are  not  the  whole  of  literature. 
Intellectual  ability  enters  as  a  factor.  Feeling  other 
than  that  which  is  strictly  religious  or  esthetic  enters,  as 
embraced  in  the  wide  compass  of  the  emotions  and  pas- 
sions. Even  the  Will  is  an  active  agent  in  the  execution 
of  motive,  while  the  ofi&ce  work  of  the  imagination  is 
potent  and  pervasive.  Here  is  a  wide  province  uncov- 
ered by  ihQ.  Hebraic  and  the  Hellenic,  the  province  of 
human  nature,  in  its  totality,  bordering  closely  on  the 
confines  of  the  infinite.  Literature  is  far  too  wide  a 
word  for  the  limitations  of  the  categories  and  must  be 
used  in  its  fullest  meaning.  Literature  is  not  the  expres- 
sion of  this  or  that  type  or  school  or  ideal,  but  the 
expression  of  human  thought  and  personality,  of  imagina- 
tion and  feeling  and  conscience  and  taste,  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  true  and  beautiful  and  good  in  concrete 
form,  in  terms  intelligible  and  attractive  to  the  general 


EEBMAI8M  AND  HELLENISM  379 

mind.  There  is  great  danger  lest  literature  may  become 
fractional,  divided  into  types  and  orders,  each  with  its 
own  insignia,  methods  and  ideals.  Sectional  literature 
may  be  other  than  geographical  and  external.  Schools  of 
Letters  there  may  be  and  will  be,  but  not  necessarily 
factions  and  coteries,  begetting  divided  interests  and 
diverting  the  attention  of  authors  from  the  great  prin- 
ciples that  underlie  all  literary  work.  Literature  in  the 
Augustan  Age,  was,  at  first,  political  and,  then,  partisan 
and,  as  such,  threatened  the  life  of  contemporary  letters. 
Even  the  phrase.  Democratic  Art  and  Letters,  tho  indi- 
cative of  range,  is  still  a  local  phrase,  the  motto  of  a 
class  or  sect.  We  are  speaking  far  to  freely  of  this  or 
that  Literary  Cult,  as  if,  for  the  time  being,  the  current 
Cult  embodied  all  the  wisdom  of  the  time.  Hence,  the 
need  of  Generalization  and  wider  outlook,  of  the  con- 
federation of  literatures  as  of  languages  and  peoples,  of 
the  unification  of  the  world's  best  authorship  for  common 
ends.  Mr.  Courthope  has  discussed  for  us,  The  Liberal 
Movement  in  English  Letters,  and,  yet,  he  has  in  mind 
but  one  historic,  national  movement.  There  is  a  wider 
use  of  the  term,  liberal,  and  outside  the  pale  of  England, 
applied  to  what  Posnett  calls.  The  World  Movement,  as 
far-reaching  as  literature  itself,  the  common  and  coopera- 
tive movement  of  the  world's  great  authors  toward  fuller 
knowledge  and  freedom  and  cultm-e  and  character,  the 
''disinterested  endeavor  to  learn  and  propagate  the  best 
that  is  known  and  thought  in  the  world." 

Attention  was  called,  as  we  opened  this  discussion,  to 
a  volume  entitled — "Social  Ideals  in  English  Letters," 
in  which  this  cosmopolitan  conception  of  letters  is  taken, 
of  literature  as  a  great  social  force.  From  the  same 
gifted  authoress  we  have  a  later  volume — ''The  Life  of 


380  LITEBATUBE 

The  Spirit  in  Modern  English  Letters,"  in  which  Litera- 
ture is  represented  as  neither  Hebraic  nor  Hellenic  but 
as  the  accepted  medium  for  the  revelation  of  the  free 
spirit  of  man  in  any  of  the  well  nigh  limitless  forms  in 
which  that  divinely  implanted  spirit  may  embody  itself, 
Literature  and  Life,  the  Life  of  Man  and  of  the  Spirit  in 
man.  Hereby  are  the  Divinities  and  the  Humanities 
unified  and  the  study  of  what  we  are  wont  to  call  Humane 
Letters  is  lifted  at  once  to  the  level  of  the  spiritual. 


CHAPTER  TWELVE 

THE   PLACE  OF  LITERATURE   IN   LIBERAL  STUDIES 

This  is  what  Mr.  Gladden  would  call  one  of  ' '  The 
Burning  Questions"  of  the  day,  agitated,  more  or  less 
earnestly,  for  the  last  two  decades,  but  comiug  to  special 
issue  as  the  new  century  opens,  an  agitation  which 
marks  increasing  interest  both  in  literature  and  higher 
education,  and  in  the  practical  relations  that  they  sus- 
tain to  each  other.  The  discussion  of  what  may  be 
called.  Educational  Literature,  or  what  has  recently 
been  called  ' '  the  academic  recognition  of  the  study  of 
literature ' '  is  before  the  educational  and  literary  Eng- 
lish Public  of  to-day  as  never  before,  a  discussion  especi- 
ally germane  to  Higher  Education  and  to  those  who  are 
in  process  of  collegiate  training.  If  the  special  reasons 
for  such  increasing  interest  in  this  vital  topic  be  sought, 
some  of  them,  at  least,  are  at  hand.  They  are  seen  in  a 
wide  and  decided  revival  of  zeal  in  education  itself;  in 
tlie  pronounced  development  of  philological  study  to  the 
possible  detriment  of  purely  literary  study,  and  in  the 
reopening  of  the  old  and  ever  new  discussion  of  the 
comparative  merits  of  the  Humanities  and  the  Sciences 
proper.  In  England,  most  especially,  and  at  its  uni- 
versity centers,  this  agitation  has  become  intense  and 
demonstrative,  arousing  both  scholarly  and  popular 
interest,  and  bidding  fair,  even  now,  to  revolutionize,  in 
the  British  Empire,  all  educational  conceptions  hitherto 
held.  Mr.  Collins,  in  his  volume,  "A  Plea  for  The 
Recognition  and  Organization   at  The  Universities  of 

381 


382  LITEBATTJBE 

the  Study  of  (Englisli)  Literature"  may  be  said  to  have 
reached  the  high  water  mark  of  this  revived  discussion, 
as  he  passionately  pleads  for  more  Himianism  in  Higher 
Education,  against  the  theory  of  those  who  ''would  re- 
serve the  universities  as  nurseries  for  specialists  and 
technical  scholars"  and  thus  materially  impair,  as  he 
urges,  tlie  usefulness  of  the  universities  themselves  and 
the  great  secondary  schools  of  the  country. 

In  determining,  therefore,  the  specific  Place  which 
Literature,  as  such,  should  have  in  a  Liberal  Curriculum, 
some  prior  questions  arise  for  settlement.  One  of  these 
is  as  to  Literature  itself,  what  it  is,  what  its  educational 
value  is,  and  what  its  final  purpose  and  ideal.  In  Part 
First,  Chapter  Two,  the  definition  of  Literature  is  dis- 
cussed.    An  additional  word  may  here  be  given. 

John  Morley  is  peculiarly  significant,  as  he  says:  "By 
Literature  I  assume  you  to  mean,  not  merely  words  and 
form,  but  the  contents  of  important  writings  in  their  re- 
lation to  human  thought  and  feeling  and  the  leading 
facts  of  human  life  and  society. ' '  So,  another  critic — 
''Literature  is  the  intellectual  product  of  cultivated 
nations,"  or  as  an  American  writer  states  it — "It  is 
that  part  of  recorded  human  thought  which  possesses  or 
has  possessed  a  more  or  less  general  and  abiding  human 
interest."  In  these  deliverances  it  is  noticeable  that 
Literature  is  allied  to  all  highly  intellectual  pursuits  and 
made  to  contribute  its  share  to  the  mental  development 
of  the  race.  If  this  be  so,  the  question  as  to  its  discip- 
linary value  is  at  once  answered  for  us,  its  object  being 
"the  building  up  of  the  mind  in  habits  of  knowledge 
and  thinking. "  "  Ten  years  experience  with  the  Cam- 
bridge University  Extension,"  writes  Professor  Moulton, 
"has  confirmed  my  impression  that  the  subject  matter  of 


PLACE  IN  LIBERAL  STUDIES  383 

literature,  its  exposition  and  analysis  from  the  sides  of 
science,  history  and  art  is  as  good  an  educational  dis- 
cipline as  it  is  valuable  in  quickening  literary  apprecia- 
tion. "  It  is  this  higher  view  of  literature  that  President 
Eliot  is  so  constantly  urging.  Literature  is  thus  an  edu- 
cational subject  and  not  a  mere  avocation  for  hours  of 
leisure  and  men  of  leisure.  It  is  a  strictly  mental  gym- 
nastic for  hours  of  thought  and  men  who  think.  So  as 
to  its  final  purpose.  This  is  not  instruction  or  informa- 
tion merely,  but  inspiration,  also,  a  real  mental  quicken- 
ing as  the  great  authors  of  the  world  come  under  review. 
It  is  with  this  in  mind  that  Mr.  Balfour  recently  said 
at  Cambridge — ''All  education  which  is  not  in  part,  and 
in  considerable  part,  a  literary  education  is  necessarily 
one-sided"  and  he  adds,  "An  education  which  does  not 
make  the  person  educated  at  home  in  some  great  imag- 
inative literature  and  which  does  not  put  him  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  great  literary  arsists  and  thinkers  of  the 
past  is  an  education  which  must  leave  undeveloped  some 
of  the  finer  sympathies."  So,  among  these  Prior  Ques- 
tions, we  must  ask,  as  to  Liberal  Training — What  is  it, 
its  province  and  purpose,  and  what  are  the  best  methods 
by  which  its  legitimate  results  may  best  be  realized? 
Here,  again,  there  need  be  no  serious  doubt,  in  that 
Liberal  Education  in  its  very  ideal  is  comprehensive, 
affecting  every  faculty  of  the  mental  man  and  including 
in  its  range  every  worthy  subject.  Literature  thus  finds 
its  normal  place  in  any  scheme  of  study  called,  Liberal, 
its  province  being  as  wide  as  that  of  any  other  related 
subject,  its  ultimate  purpose  as  high,  and  the  methods 
of  its  exposition  as  varied  and  effective.  It  being,  there- 
fore, conceeded  that  Literature  should  have  a  place  in 
Liberal  Education,  the  question  assumes  more  definite 


384  LITERATURE 

form  and  it  is  asked — What  Place — how  ample  and  im- 
portant; and  we  answer  in  the  words  of  President  Eliot, 
relative  to  English  studies — "A  place  of  equal  academic 
value  with  any  subject  now  most  honored."  This  de- 
mand, it  will  be  marked,  is  not  absolute  but  relative, 
not  for  supremacy  but  equality,  as  Literature  stands  re- 
lated to  the  other  departments  of  a  collegiate  curriculum. 
In  that  "Eenovated  Curriculum"  of  which  Professor 
Bain  has  spoken.  Literature  is  to  be  placed  at  the  front, 
in  line  with  the  Sciences  and  the  Philosophies  and,  thus, 
in  line  with  all  the  best  conditions  of  modern  educational 
progress.  This  is  the  purpose  of  the  modern  literary 
movement  in  Great  Britain,  the  healthful  influence  of 
which  we  are  already  feeling,  this  side  the  sea,  a  move- 
ment that  has  gone  too  far  to  be  reversed  or  successfully 
checked.  The  notable  support  which  it  has  received 
from  men  of  eminence  in  all  departments  is  itself  a 
sufficient  guarantee  of  its  high  character  and  ultimate 
success. 

Mr.  Collins  has  collated  such  a  consensus,  the  special 
occasion  of  his  appeal  being  the  increasing  need  that 
was  felt  for  an  immediate  enlargement  of  the  English 
literary  work  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  As  we  are 
told — ''Almost  every  eminent  authority  in  education 
and  literature  in  England"  was  asked  to  expresss  his 
unbiased  views  on  the  proposition  submitted.  The 
proposition  in  its  full  form,  includes  three  related  sug 
gestions. 

(a)  That  systematic  instruction  in  English  Literature 
should  be  given  at  the  Universities. 

(&)  That  English  Literary  Instruction  proper  should 
be  discriminated  from  purely  English  philological  in- 
struction. 


PLACE  IN  LIBERAL  STUDIES  385 

(c)  That  the  study  of  Ancient  or  Classical  Literature 
should  receive  the  place  and  attention  that  it  inherently 
deserves  in  connection  with  the  study  of  the  vernacular 
itself. 

This  was  the  General  Proposition,  and  these  the  Sub- 
ordinate Suggestions  submitted,  as  a  Plea  for  Literature. 
Inasmuch  as  the  authorities  adduced  were  not  only 
authors  who  might  be  supposed  to  have  a  prejudiced 
interest,  but  bishops  and  justices  and  statesmen  and 
scientists  and,  even,  men  of  affairs,  the  subject  is  at  once 
lifted  from  the  plane  of  special  pleading  or  limited  aca- 
demic area  to  the  higher  plane  of  general  interest,  touch- 
ing human  knowledge  on  all  its  sides,  and  bringing 
literature  into  line  with  every  worthy  branch  of  intel- 
lectual inquiry.  Hence,  the  practical  question  arises — 
How  is  such  a  place  of  equality  to  be  secured  ?  Mani- 
festly, at  the  outset,  there  is  involved,  a  readjustment  of 
existing  Collegiate  Courses,  such  a  modification  neces- 
sitating the  substantive  reduction  of  some  established 
non-literary  courses.  At  this  point,  the  proposition  re- 
solves itself  into  one  of  educational  time  and  place. 
Speaking  in  terms  of  the  modern  industrial  exposition, 
the  first  thing  needed  is  sufficient  floor-room  for  the  pro- 
posed literary  exhibit,  an  actual  standing  place  for  the 
exhibitor.  Down  to  a  very  recent  date,  the  area  has 
been  a  limited  one,  the  space  devoted  to  related  studies 
compassing  nearly  all  the  allotted  educational  room.  In 
the  expansion  of  the  modern  curriculum  the  claims  of 
the  sciences  and  philosophies ;  of  art  and  history  and 
jurisprudence  and  philology  have  been  pressed  and  con- 
ceded. In  the  decided  sociological  trend,  the  Human- 
ities have  had  a  strenuous  struggle  for  existence.  Liter- 
ature has  been  so  held  in  abeyance  by  classical  educators 


386  LITEBATUBE 

to  the  study  of  linguistics,  that  it  has  been  sacrificed  in 
the  house  of  its  friends.  Not  until  recently  has  Litera- 
ture been  given  a  fair  hearing  before  the  bar  of  Higher 
Education. 

Whether,  in  the  ever  more  intense  rivalry  of  studies  in 
modern  education,  Literature  shall  secure  its  rightful 
place,  the  future  only  will  reveal.  In  the  meantime,  the 
duty  of  the  literary  advocate  is  a  plain  one,  to  urge  the 
claims  of  literary  studies  to  equality  with  "any  subject 
now  most  honored. ' ' 

It  may  be  further  noted,  that  such  Equality  of  Place 
would  involve  the  more  Systematic  and  Thorough  Teach- 
ing of  Literature,  the  fact  being  that  it  has  hitherto  been 
taught  superficially,  pedagogically,  rather  than  ration- 
ally, as  an  exalted  pursuit  both  for  educator  and  pupil. 

One  of  the  main  reasons  why  Humanism  has  not  been 
holding  its  historic  place  and  has  been  so  subjected  to 
contesting  interests  is  that  the  method  of  the  teaching 
has  been  erroneous.  If,  as  Collins  properly  states  it. 
Literature  is  to  be  wrongly  regarded  as  one  of  the  lighter 
subjects  for  the  leisure  hours  of  the  drawing-room,  and 
not  a  mental  pursuit  for  thinking  men  in  their  best 
mental  moods,  then  it  is  not  surprising  that  it  has  been 
left  unchallenged  on  the  lower  planes  of  educational 
work.  When  properly  understood  and  approached, 
however,  it  will  be  seen  to  be  instinct  with  life,  co- 
ordinated with  all  that  is  best,  and  its  exposition  will  be 
a  valid  and  an  effective  one. 

The  literary  pedant  emi>hasizing  names  and  dates  and 
the  minutest  matters  of  an  author's  life  and  work  is  one 
type;  the  literary  guide  and  master,  bringing  to  light 
great  generic  principles  in  literature  and  illustrating 
its  relation  to  all  high  forms  of  mental  discipline  is  quite 


PLACE  IN  LIBERAL  STUDIES  387 

another  type  and  the  only  worthy  one.  As  contrasting 
these  two  methods  of  teaching  literatnrc,  the  pedantic 
and  the  philosophic,  Mr.  Collins  has  been  at  pains  to 
summarize  a  list  of  questions  such  as  these  respective 
examiners  would  use,  in  order  to  show  the  immense 
superiority  of  the  latter. 

In  the  way  of  specific  indication  as  to  how  such  in- 
struction might  be  made  more  systematic,  ardent  advo- 
cates of  literary  training  are  contending  for  the  general 
founding  of  Schools  of  Literature,  as  such  a  School  exists 
in  the  University  of  Virginia,  by  the  agency  of  which 
literary  instruction  might  be  duly  emjjhasized;  placed 
on  a  par  with  Schools  of  Science,  Philosophy  and  Lan- 
guage ;  organized  under  one  Faculty  of  Letters,  sovereign 
in  its  own  domain,  jealous  of  all  intrusion,  and  respon- 
sible before  the  educational  public  for  what  it  does  and 
fails  to  do.  One  of  the  valid  benefits  of  such  a  School 
is  seen  in  that  it  would  attract  to  it  more  of  the  brighter 
minds  among  the  undergraduates,  one  of  the  factors 
determining  the  choice  of  students  being  the  complete- 
ness of  the  organization  of  a  department  and  the  facili- 
ties it  offers  for  the  best  results.  Especially  would  such 
an  organization  appeal  to  those  who  were  looking  to 
Literature  as  a  profession,  as  authors  or  educators. 

Difference  of  opinion  might  be  held  as  to  the  proper 
adjustment  in  such  a  School  of  the  various  studies  em- 
braced in  Literature — prose  and  poetry;  theory  and 
praxis;  history  and  criticism;  of  the  vernacular  litera- 
ture as  related  to  foreign  product,  and  of  language  itself 
as  involved  in  literary  study.  Whatever  their  adjust- 
ment, they  would  not  vitally  affect  the  issue  involved. 

A  further  benefit  would  accrue  in  that  such  a  School 
of  Letters  would  serve  to  solve  many  a  troublesome  ques- 


388  LITEBATTJBE 

tion  by  tlie  increasing  unification  of  studies  hitherto 
conflicting, — such  as  literature  and  language,  the  class- 
ical and  the  continental  tongues,  as  related  to  each  other 
or  to  the  English.  By  the  proposed  Eeadjustment, 
Language  is  assigned  to  its  legitimate  area,  as  Literature 
is  to  its  area.  The  linguistic  rivalry  of  ancient  and 
modern  literature,  or  of  classical  and  English  Literature, 
would  be  largely  abated  by  diverting  the  discussion  to 
literary  channels  where  each  of  the  great  literatures  is 
given .  its  appropriate  place  and  made  to  contribute  to 
the  better  interpretation  of  literature  itself.  New  life 
would  at  once  be  infused,  both  into  classical  and  modern 
study,  as  well  as  into  that  of  English  Literature  proper, 
and  the  student  be  enabled  to  pursue  his  researches  freed 
from  those  traditional  judgments  which  have  so  long 
served  to  impede  the  way  of  the  scholar  in  letters  and 
make  it  impossible  for  him  to  exhibit  anything  like  • 
catholicity  of  reasoning.  Differences  of  detail  would,  of 
course,  arise,  as  to  whether  per  chance,  the  Greek  or  the 
Latin  Literature,  the  French  or  the  German,  should  re- 
ceive the  emphasis.  Such  differences,  however,  would 
be  slight  as  compared  with  the  existing  confusion. 

An  additional  benefit  connected  with  such  an  assign- 
ment of  Literature  to  academic  equality  appears  in  that 
it  would  give  to  Literature  for  the  first  time  an  open 
field  for  its  best  expression.  Hitherto,  it  has  been,  as 
a  collegiate  study,  underestimated;  largely  because  the 
opportunity  has  not  been  given  it  to  assert  its  inherent 
vitality;  to  compass  its  proper  province;  and  to  show 
what  it  can  do  in  the  line  of  the  intellectual  quickening 
of  those  who  properly  pursue  it.  It  has  sometimes 
seemed  feasible  to  establish  in  our  Institutions  of  Learn- 
ing a  Literary  Laboratory,  a  place  for  literary  experi- 


PLACE  IN  LIBERAL  STUDIES  389 

ment,  observation  aud  result,  where  teachers  and  pupils 
might  meet  for  joint  activity,  where  the  actual  literary 
processes  might  be  seen  and  appreciated,  as  physical 
processes  are  studied  in  a  chemical  laboratory.  The 
developing  Seminary  Work  of  our  Modern  Universities 
is  a  step  in  this  direction,  as  is  the  Preceptorial  Method 
recently  instituted  at  Princeton.  In  such  an  environ- 
ment, manifold  questions  of  interest  would  arise.  The 
personal  difficulties  of  the  pupil  would  be  stated  and 
settled  and  his  interest  intelligently  guided.  In  such  a 
literary  work-shop.  Literature  would  justify  itself,  as 
never  before,  as  a  vital  educational  factor. 

From  this  discussion  of  the  claims  of  Literature  some 
suggestions  of  practical  interest  arise — First,  as  to  the 
Literary  Outlook.  It  is  clear  to  every  careful  observer 
of  the  signs  of  the  times  in  educational  matters  that 
literary  studies  are  now  eliciting  an  interest  more  intel- 
ligent and  intense  than  at  any  previous  period.  Nor  is 
this  interest  purely  professional,  but  deep-seated  and 
widespread,  engaging  the  attention  of  the  great  educa- 
tional public,  and  thus  of  right  expected  to  express  it- 
self in  safe  and  permanent  forms.  The  increasing  number 
of  liberally  educated  men  now  identifying  themselves 
with  one  form  or  another  of  journalistic  work  is  a  health- 
ful sign  of  interaction  between  our  colleges  and  the  more 
practical  side  of  literary  life  and  work.  If  we  inquire 
as  to  these  elements  of  Promise,  they  are  not  far  to  find. 
One  of  them  is  seen,  in  the  new  and  better  status  of 
Literary  Study  in  our  Secondary  Schools,  whereby  a 
close  affinity  is  established  between  collegiate  and  pre- 
collegiate  literary  instruction,  the  latter  thus  preparing 
the  way  for  the  former  and  unifying  all  literary  courses. 
Heretofore,  no  such  nexus  has  been  apparent.     Each 


390  LITEBATUBE 

grade  of  institution,  lower  and  higher,  has  acted  inde- 
pendently of  the  other,  and  the  results  have  been  corre- 
spondingly evil.  Through  this  closer  relationship,  the 
colleges  and  schools  will  engage  in  the  same  great  work 
on  common  methods  and  with  common  interests. 

A  further  element  of  promise  is  seen  in  The  Presence 
of  Higher  Literary  Ideals,  especially  in  bringing  stu- 
dents in  process  of  liberal  training  more  and  more  into 
direct  contact  with  the  best  authors,  so  as  to  make  them 
thoroughly  conversant  with  their  writings  and  personal- 
ity and  their  most  intense  literary  spirit.  Above  all  the 
theories  of  the  schools  and  all  courses  in  literary  criticism, 
literature  itself  as  a  visible  product  will  be  examined  by 
the  student  on  independent  grounds.  Authors  will  be 
studied  as  far  more  imj)ortant  than  any  facts  or  data 
relating  to  them.  It  is  in  this  way,  and  this  way  only, 
that  the  right  approach  to  literature  is  made  and  its 
most  beneficent  recompense  secured. 

A  second  suggestion  relates  to  The  Existing  Needs  in 
Literary  Study,  in  our  colleges.  One  of  these  is  an  En- 
largement of  Literary  Courses.  While  in  a  few  of  our 
colleges  and  universities  these  courses  are  substantially 
ample,  the  most  of  them  are  herein  deficient.  Thus,  a 
further  need  arises  as  to  the  Teaching  Force,  so  lament- 
ably meager  in  most  institutions,  the  literary  faculties 
comparing,  most  unfavorably,  with  the  philosophic,  econ- 
omic and  historical.  Those  devoted  to  strictly  philolog- 
ical teaching  are  far  more  numerous.  A  further  Need 
is  in  the  line  of  Library  Facilities,  whereby  the  literary 
student  shall  have  free  access  to  the  world's  best  litera- 
ture, and,  if  possible,  under  the  intelligent  guidance  of 
an  accredited  bibliographer,  competent  to  counsel  stu- 
dents as  to  the  choice  and  use  of  books.     Literature  is  a 


PLACE  IN  LIBERAL  STUDIES  391 

study  of  books,  a  specifically  library  department,  in  the 
pursuit  of  which  the  largest  possible  facilities  should  be 
offered  for  the  consulting  of  authors  and  for  research.  It 
is  preeminently  a  Eeading  Course,  by  which,  as  Bacon 
suggests,  one  becomes  a  ^'full  man."  The  awakened 
interest  in  the  establishment  of  Libraries  is  a  most  en- 
couraging feature  of  modern  times.  Men  of  wealth  are 
contributing  in  this  direction  as  never  before.  Govern- 
ments are  devoting  revenue  thereto,  while  our  higher 
institutions  are  quicker  than  ever  to  make  these  biblio- 
graphical needs  known  to  the  public. 

A  further  suggestion  arises  as  To  the  Place  of  Litera- 
ture in  Schools  of  Science,  in  Technical  and  Professional 
Schools,  one  of  whose  leading  features  is,  that  they  have 
little  to  do  with  the  Humanities,  and  are  thus  non-liter- 
ary. The  old  discussion  as  to  the  relative  importance  of 
Words  and  Things  is  here  revived,  and  partly  settled  by 
the  way  of  mutual  concession.  Schools  of  Letters  and  of 
Science  are  often  established  on  the  same  ground,  by  the 
same  benefactions  and  with  the  idea  of  reciprocal  inter- 
ests. In  a  few  of  our  colleges,  many  of  the  courses  in 
each  of  these  Schools  are  open  to  members  of  each.  Tho 
Literature  is  untechnical  and,  to  this  degree,  non-scien- 
tific, there  is  a  tendency  to  lessen  the  distance  between 
these  two  sections  of  educational  work,  in  order  that 
Science  may  be  liberalized  and  Literature  enriched. 
Students  of  Humanism  need  some  scientific  instruction, 
while  students  of  nature  are  also  in  need  of  the  culturing 
courses.  It  may  thus  be  urged  that  while  Literature  as 
a  Liberal  Study  should  find  some  place  in  technical  in- 
struction, such  place  should  be  manifestly  limited  and 
subordinate,  just  enough  indeed  to  secure  the  cultivation 
and  expression  of  good  taste. 


392  LITERATURE 

A  final  suggestion  has  reference  to  The  Place  of  Eng- 
lish Literature  in  English  Institutions.  Collin's  plea  for 
the  study  of  Literature  is,  first  and  last,  a  plea  for  Eng- 
lish, occasioned  by  the  conspicuous  absence  hitherto  of 
English  studies  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  the  sacri- 
fice of  Literature  to  Linguistics.  He  shows  how  such  a 
study  is  to  be  applied;  explains  existing  failure,  and  re- 
futes the  current  idea  that  English  Literature  is  to  be 
read  only  and  can  not  be  taught  as  an  educational  sub- 
ject. To  this  end,  he  adduces  the  opinion  of  Huxley, 
Cardinal  Manning,  Jowett,  Farrar,  Craik,  Pater,  Glad- 
stone, Matthew  Arnold  and  others. 

Such  a  plea  has  force,  this  side  the  ocean,  in  that  till 
recently  English  has  been  held  in  abeyance,  so  that  the 
average  student  has  known  foreign  literature,  classical 
and  continental,  better  than  his  own,  and  has  been  able 
to  do  almost  anything  else  better  than  to  use  his  vernac- 
ular with  correctness  and  cogency.  No  department  of 
collegiate  work  has  so  suffered  at  the  hands  of  novices, 
even  tho  it  is  true,  in  the  words  of  President  Eliot, 
' Hhat  there  is  no  subject  in  which  competent  guidance 
and  systematic  instruction  are  of  greater  value."  If  we 
inquire,  therefore,  as  to  its  Eightful  Place,  we  answer, 
as  with  regard  to  Literature  in  general,  that  it  should 
have  ^' equal  academic  value  with  any  subject  now  most 
honored, ' '  equal  as  to  the  time  allotted  it,  as  to  the  facil- 
ities afforded  it,  as  to  the  character  of  the  instruction 
given,  and  the  academic  honors  assigned  it.  Such  a 
claim  is  eminently  reasonable  in  the  light  of  what  our 
English  Literature  is  in  its  scope  and  quality,  and  because 
we  are  living  in  an  era  when  the  vernacular  is  in  evi- 
dence as  never  before.  General  literary  culture,  strange 
to  say,  and  even  special  classical  culture,  strange  to  say, 


PLACE  IN  LIBERAL  STUDIES  393 

is  too  often  found  where  a  decided  Englisli  culture  is 
lacking.  English  literary  culture  must  have  the  home 
flavor  and  savor.  Every  English  educational  center 
should  be  instinct  with  English  literary  life  and  its  influ- 
ence be  quickening  and  chastening. 

Hence — a  closing  question — What  are  our  American 
Liberal  Institutions  doing  for  English  Literature  in 
America  ?  "VVe  are  told  that  our  Literature  is  declining; 
that  the  heroic  age  of  our  Letters  is  in  the  past;  that  our 
literary  product  is  still  provincial;  and  that,  in  the  main, 
it  is  confined  to  fiction  and  poetry  and  the  lighter  mis- 
cellany; that  it  is  too  journalistic.  These  reflections  are 
worth  heeding.  It  is  answered  by  those  heeding  them 
that  the  mission  of  America  is  industrial,  and  that  the 
nation  is  too  young  as  yet  to  compete  with  the  older 
peoples;  too  young,  indeed,  for  a  national  literature. 
The  difficulty  lies  deeper  and,  in  part,  at  least,  in  the 
want  of  a  more  decided  literary  spirit  and  training  in 
our  Schools  and  Colleges.  Students  are  not  kept  long 
enough  in  contact  with  the  inner  life  of  English  Letters 
to  take  in  something  of  that  spirit  that  pervades  them. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  every  graduating  class 
there  should  be  a  goodly  number  of  English  literary 
specialists,  men  who  would  be  willing  to  survey,  at  least, 
the  literary  outlook  in  America,  and  make  the  attempt 
to  do  something  in  the  sphere  of  national  authorship. 

Motley,  Prescott,  Everett  and  Ticknor,  at  Harvard; 
Hawthorne  and  Longfellow,  at  Bowdoin;  "Willis,  at  Yale; 
and  Bryant,  at  Williams,  may  be  said  to  have  opened 
their  literary  careers  in  college  and  to  have  graduated, 
in  a  sense,  as  American  authors,  bent  on  literary  work, 
and  who,  in  the  early  years  of  their  graduate  life,  set  the 
form  for  all  later  effort  and  opened  the  way  for  the 


394  LITERATURE 

Golden  Age  of  our  autliorsliip.  Literary  culture  should 
be  more  and  more  a  scholarly  culture,  as  scholarship 
should  be,  more  and  more,  inspired  with  a  literary  spirit. 

Thus  will  scholarship  and  literature  alike  commend 
themselves  to  the  intelligent  world  at  large  and  the 
unity  and  catholicity  of  liberal  studies  be  evinced. 

Men  of  Letters  and  Men  of  Learning  should  labor  tc 
gether  on  common  ground  and  for  common  interests 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(General  Discussions) 


Arnold's  American  Addresses  (Literature  and  Science). 
Arnold's  Culture  and  Anarchy. 

Arnold's  Essays  in  Criticism  (Literary  Influence  of  Acade- 
mies). 
Azarius'  Philosophy  of  Literature. 
Bacon's  Essays.     (Studies.) 
Bagehot's  Literary  Studies. 
Bascom's  Philosophy  of  English  Literature. 
Begg's  Development  of  Taste. 

Beers'  English  Romanticism  in  the  Eighteenth  Century. 
Birrell's  Obiter  Dicta  (I,  II). 
Brooke's  Early  English  Literature. 
Carlyle's  Essays  and  Reviews. 
Collins'  Study  of  English  Literature. 
Cook's  English  Prose  and  English  Bible. 
Cooke's  Poets  and  Problems. 
Coppee's  English  Literature. 
Corson's  Aims  of  Literary  Study. 
Corson's  Primer  of  English  Verse. 
Corson's  Introduction  to  Shakespeare. 
Corson's  Introduction  to  Browning. 
Courthope's  Liberal  Movement  in  English  Literature. 
Courthope's  Life  in  Poetry. 
Crashaw's  Interpretation  of  Literature. 
Crashaw's  Literary  Interpretation  of  Life. 
Crawford's  The  Novel— What  It  Is  ? 
Cross'  Development  of  the  English  Novel. 
De  Quincey's  Essays.     (Rhetoric  and  Style.) 
Devey's  Modern  English  Poets  (chapters  1-6). 
Dowden's  Transcripts  and  Studies. 
Dowden's  Studies  in  Literature. 

395 


396  LITERATURE 

Dowden's  English  Literature  and  The  French  Revolution. 

Dunlop's  History  of  Fiction. 

Earle's  English  Prose  (chapters  10-13). 

Ellis'  The  New  Spirit. 

Emerson's  Essays.  (Sovereignty  of  Ethics,  Literature,  Cul- 
ture.) 

Everett's  Poetry,  Comedy  and  Duty. 

Gayley's  Literary  Criticism. 

Gummere's  Old  English  Ballads. 

Gummere's  Handbook  of  Poetics. 

Gummere's  Beginnings  of  Poetry. 

Hallam's  Literary  History. 

Harrison's  Choice  of  Books. 

Hugo's  Literature  and  Philosophy. 

Hunt's  Studies  in  Literature  and  Style. 

Huxley's  Science  and  Culture. 

Jusserand's  English  Novel  in  time  of  Shakespeare. 

Kerr's  Epic  and  Romance. 

Knight's  Studies  in  Philosophy  and  Literature. 

Lamb's  Essays  in  Literature. 

Lanier's  English  Novel 

Lewes'  Principles  of  Success  in  Literature. 

Locke's  Essay  on  Human  Understanding. 

Lowell's  Essays.  (Books  and  Libraries,  Harvard  Anniversary 
Address. ) 

Mabie's  Essays  on  Literary  Interpretation. 

Mabie's  Studies  in  Literature. 

Maurice's  Friendship  of  Books, 

Morley's  (H.)  Illustrations  of  English  Religion. 

Morley's  (J.)  Studies  in  Literature. 

Moulton's  Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatic  Artist. 

Morris'  Art  and  Socialism. 

Miiller's  Science  of  Thought. 

Newman's  Idea  of  a  University. 

Phelp's  English  Romantic  Movement. 

Phelp's  (Austin)  Men  and  Books. 

Possnett's  Comparative  Literature. 

Raleigh's  English  Novel. 

Raymond's  Poetry  as  a  Representative  Art. 


BIBLIOGBAPSY  397 

Richardson's  American  Literature. 

Saintsbury's  English  Prose  Specimens  (Introduction). 

Saintsbury's  The  Flourishing  of  Allegory. 

Saintsbury's  History  of  Literary  Criticism. 

Sanford's  Rise  and  Progress  of  Literature. 

Santayana's  Poetry  and  Religion. 

Schlegel's  Dramatic  Literature. 

Schiller's  Esthetic  Letters. 

Schopenhauer's  Art  of  Literature. 

Scudder's  Social  Ideals  in  English  Letters. 

Scudder's  Life  of  the  Spirit  in  Modern  English  Letters. 

Selkirk's  Ethics  and  Esthetics  of  Modern  Poetry. 

Shairp's  Culture  and  Religion. 

Shairp's  Poetry  and  Philosophy. 

Shairp's  Aspects  of  Poetry. 

Shairp's  Poetic  Interpretation  of  Nature. 

Shepherd's  Authors  and  Authorship. 

Sherman's  Analytics  of  Literature. 

Sismondi's  Literature  of  Europe, 

Spencer's  Philosophy  of  Style. 

Spingarn's  Literary  Criticism  of  the  Renaissance. 

Stanley's  Essays  on  Literary  Art. 

Stedman's  Nature  of  Poetry. 

Stephens'  Hours  in  a  Library. 

Stephens'  History  of  English   Thought  in  the  Eighteenth 

Century. 
Stoddard's  Evolution  of  the  English  Novel. 
Taine's  English  Literature. 
Taylor's  Studies  in  German  Literature. 
Thompson's  Ethics  of  Literature. 
Tuckerman's  Prose  Fiction. 
Vinet's  Outlines  of  Philosophy  and  Literature. 
Ward's  History  of  the  English  Drama, 
Warner's  Literature  and  Life. 
Whipple's  Literature  and  Life. 
Wilson's  Theology  of  Modern  Literature. 
Winchester's  Principles  of  Literary  Criticism. 
Worsfold's  Principles  of  Criticism, 


INDEX 


Academic  prose,  255. 

Aims  of  literary  reading,  203. 

Alfred,  King,  217,  219. 

Allegorical  epic,  267. 

American  literature,  153. 

American  men  of  letters,  36. 

Arcadia,  321. 

Aristotle,  255. 

Arnold,  Edwin,  83. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  9,  22,  28,  29,  232,  234, 

239. 
Art  epic,  269. 

Artistic  method  and  spirit,  177. 
Aryan,  143. 
Attic  drama,  226. 
Authors  and  statesmen,  87. 

first  and  second  orders,  48. 

undergraduate,  393. 

uneducated,  171. 
Authorship  and  scholarship,  171. 

average,  10. 

expression  of  thought,  26. 

literary  or  not,  30,  31. 

ideal,    impassioned,   untechnical, 
25. 

written,  24. 
Autobiography,  248. 

Bacon,  26,  32,  78. 

Bacon  on  studies,  204. 

Balfour,  383 

Ballads,  epic,  269,  275. 

Bascom,  3,  23. 

Beauty,  theories  of,  289. 

Beowulf,  13,  221. 

Berkeley,  78. 

Bibliography,  critical,  123. 

Biographies,  literary,  political,  94,  210. 

Biography,  248. 

Books,  disciplinary,  210. 

helpful  and  wholesome,  212. 


Brooke,  21. 
Browning,  Mrs.,  241. 
Bryant,  241. 
Buckle,  249. 
Burke,  26,  32. 
Byron,  169. 

Caedmon,  13. 

Canterbury  tales,  224, 240. 

Caprice,  13. 

Carlyle,  219. 

Catholicity  of  view,  11. 

Celtic  literature,  78. 

Chaucer,  47,  221,  228,  240,  244. 

Chronicles,  old  English,  217,  221, 

Civic  questions  discussed,  36. 

Clarendon  press  series,  38. 

Classical  teaching,  117. 

Clerical  authors,  161. 

Clough,  158,  166. 

Coleridge,  41,53. 

Collins,  107,  381,384. 

Commercialism  in  literature,  153. 

Complexity,  15;. 

Composition,  poetic,  314. 

Conservatism  in  literature,  214. 

Constructive  criticism,  128. 

Courses,  library,  390. 

Courthope,  139,  141,  214,  281. 

Courtly  epic,  209. 

Cousin,  on  taste,  288. 

Craik,  38. 

Crawford,  319,  323,  324. 

Criticism,  esthetic,  133. 

historical,  132. 

literary,  135. 

philosophic,  134. 

textual,  133. 

Dante,  187. 

Decadence  in  literature,  227, 

899 


400 


INDEX 


Definition  of  literature,  30. 

consequent  suggestion,  30. 

facts  included,  24. 

history  of  opinion,  26. 

statement  of,  24. 

suggestions,  23. 
Development  in  literature.  225. 
Devey  on  poetry,  230. 
Dialect  poetry,  203. 
Disciplinary  literature,  119, 120. 
Diversity  of  literary  forms,  32. 
Dogmatism,  13. 
Dowden,  3,  239. 
Drama  and  stage.  340. 

and  novel,  343. 

as  interpreting  life,  150. 
Drummond,  64. 


Greneralization  in  literature,  345. 
German  literature,  214. 

school  of  letters,  114. 
Gibbon,  47, 237. 
Goethe  in  poetry,  231. 
Greek  literature  and  philosophy,  73. 
Guiding  principles  of  literature,  3. 

absence  of  pre-judgments,  14. 

constructive  criticism,  16. 

genuine  contrasts,  9. 

importance  of  beginnings,  6. 

inner  spirit,  17. 

proper  point  of  view,  4. 

the  primary  and  secondary,  6. 

the  unknown  quantity,  11. 
Guizot,  249. 
Gummere,  281. 


Edinburgh  review,  260. 
Education  and  literature,  175. 
Eliot,  President,  383. 
Elton,  8. 

Emerson,  28,  184. 
England  and  the  continent,  441. 
English  literature  in  America,  393. 
English  men  of  letters  series,  86. 
English,  old,  modern,  etc.,  214. 
Environment  and  literature,  144. 

of  authors  and  statesmen,  86. 
Epics,  medieval,  8. 
Epoch  and  literature,  145. 
Esthetics,  313. 
Ethics  and  history,  159. 

and  fiction,  159, 160. 

and  poetry,  159, 160, 161, 
Euphues,  331. 
Exceptions,  law  of,  13. 

Feeling  in  Poetry,  287. 
Fiction  as  interpreting  life,  149. 

historical,  etc.,  325. 
First  English,  42. 
Folk-epic,  269-272. 

lore,  8. 
Formalism,  179. 
Forms,  literary,  213. 

general  and  special,  215. 
Freeman's  Norman  conquest,  206. 
French  school  of  letter,  115. 


Hallam,  21. 

Hebraism  and  hellenism  in  literature, 
367. 

statement  of  Arnold's  view,  367, 
369. 

examination  of  his  theory,  369, 370. 

correct  view,  370.. 

illustrations  of  it,  379. 
Hegelian  philosophy,  74. 
Historical  prose,  247. 
History  and  literature,  140, 141, 142. 
History,  political,  88. 
Hobbes  on  books,  204. 
Hooker,  26,  32. 
Hudibras,  219. 
Hudson,  38. 
Humanism,  386. 
Hume.  47,  76,  247. 
Huxley,  3,  22,  65. 

Idealism  in  fiction,  321. 
Imagination  in  poetry,  284,  285. 

scientific,  61,  77. 
Influence  of  France  in  English  liter- 
ature, 44. 

of  Germany  in  English  literature, 
44. 

of  Italy  in  English  literature,  44. 
Intellectual  verse,  237. 
Institutions,  literary,  176. 
Irving,  Henry,  340. 


INDEX 


401 


Jebb,  22. 
Journalism,  260. 

and  literature,  175. 
Jusserand  on  his  novel,  321. 

Language  and  literature,  106. 

Lanier's  theory  of  fiction,  219. 

Leckey's  European  morals,  206, 251. 

Leibnitz,  74,  76. 

Lessing,  299. 

Lewes,  3. 

Liberal    professions    and   literature, 

169. 
Liberal  studies  and  literature,  381. 
Library,  functions  of,  205. 
Linguistic  criticism.  111. 

study,  107,  108. 
Literature,  definition  of,  20. 

guiding  principles  of,  3. 

methods  of  study,  36. 

scope  of,  52. 
Literature  and  arts,  168. 

classification  of  arts,  168. 

fine  arts,  176. 

liberal  arts,  168. 
Literature  and  criticism,  127. 

definition  of  criticism,  127. 

methods  of  criticism,  132. 

primary  purpose  of,  131. 

results  of,  135. 

species  of,  126. 

suggestions,  138. 
Literature  and  ethics,  156. 

history  of  opinion,  Selkirk,  etc., 
156. 

illustration  of  relation,  159. 

influence  of  unbelief,  164. 

ultra  moralism,  161. 
Literature  and  language,  106. 

a  natural  relation,  107. 

dangerous  extreme.  111. 
Literature  and  life,  139. 

illustrative  literary  forms,  149. 

Taine's  theory,  143. 
Literature  and  philosophy,  69. 

mutual  interaction,  73. 

presence  of  imagination,  76. 

philosophic  method,  72. 

use  of  terms,  69. 


Literature  and  politics,  85. 

reasons  of  relation,  86. 

specific  forms,  88. 
Literature  and  science,  96. 

scientific  forms,  59. 

scientific  material,  60. 

scientific  method,  58. 
Lowell  on  libraries,  210,  811. 
Lyric  verse,  356. 

Macaulay,  287. 
Macready,  343. 
Manuals,  literary,  112. 
Masson,  48. 
Medievalism,  231. 
Melodrama,  341. 
Metaphysical  school,  82. 
Methods  of  literary  study  ,36. 

comparative,  43. 

historical,  46. 

impartial,  48. 

literary,  37. 

logical,  41. 

suggestive,  39. 
Middle  Enghsh,  42. 
Mill,  287. 

Milton,  meters  of,  309-10. 
Miracle  plays,  221-222. 
Miscellany,  pohtical,  75. 
Mission  of  literature,  184. 

conception  of  great  ideas,  186. 

interpretation  of  the  age,  189. 

interpretation  of  human  nature, 
193. 

presentation  of  high  ideals,  195. 
Moore,  231. 
Morahties,  221. 
Morley,  John,  382. 
Moulton,  114. 

Movements  in  literature,  214. 
Mysteries,  221. 
Mystical  school,  83. 

Napoleon,  52. 
Newman,  Cardinal,  59. 
Novel,  the  ideal,  333. 

and  drama,  342,  356. 

and  romance,  325. 

development  of  English  novel,  321. 


402 


INDEX 


Oration,  as  a  written  form,  353. 
Oratorical  prose,  252. 
Orosius,  217, 

Outlook  in  literature,  389. 
in  poetry,  316. 

Parochial  literature,  161, 162. 

Pater,  57. 

Periods  overlap,  42. 

Personality  in  literature,  146. 

Philology  and  literature,  106, 107, 115. 

Philosophers,  German  and  French,  86. 

Philosophic  spirit,  72. 

Philosophy  and  literature,  69. 

Piers  the  plowman,  148. 

Pietism  and  Puritanism,  162. 

Poetics,  300. 

diction,   antique,  figurative,   301, 
302. 

structure,  metrical,  textual,  verb- 
al, 300,  303. 

terms,  rhyme,  rhythm,  versifica- 
tion, etc.,  305,  307. 
Poetry,  206. 

affinities,  24. 

Characteristics,    scope,    rhythm, 
271,  272. 

definition  of,  238. 

essentials  of,  thought,  etc.,  288» 
283. 

purpose  of,  239. 

schools  of,  ethical,  critical,  etc., 
231,235. 

specific  kinds  of,  235. 

source  of.  240. 

types  of    Oriental,   Greek,  etc., 
230,231. 

Uses  of,  pleasure,  refinement, etc., 
294,  297. 
Points  of  view,  one  or  more,  4. 

external  and  internal,  5. 
Politics  and  literature,  65. 
Politics  defined,  political  poetry,  85, 

100. 
Possnett,  21,  23,  53, 64, 146. 
Prejudices,  literary ,,14. 

inherited  opinions,  15. 

undue  estimate  of  vernacular,  14. 
Prescott,  32. 


Problems  in  criticism,  138. 
Prose  fiction,  219,  318. 

characteristics  of,  325,  327. 

essentials  to  success,  329. 

forms  of,  critical,  etc.,  246. 

origin  and  purpose,  318, 319 

probable  permanence,  333. 

types  of,  325. 
Prose  writers  as  scholars,  169. 

Questions,  open,  in  literature,  335. 
generalization  and  specialization, 

345. 
literary  standards,  348. 
relations  of  drama  and  novel,  342. 
relation  of  drama  to  the  stage,  340. 
relation  of  literature  and  style,  357. 
relation  of  literature  as  written 

and  oral,  351. 
relation  of  prose  and  verse,  335. 
relative   rank   of   epic  and  other 

verse,  338. 
the  literary  spirit,  360. 

Race  factors  in  literature,  143. 
Raleigh,  217,  321. 
Reading,  literary,  203. 
Realism,  10. 

in  fiction,  322. 
Realistic  verse,  282. 
Relations  of  literature,  56. 
Renaissance,  227. 
Results  of  literary  criticism,  135. 

appreciation  of  literature,  135, 

education  of  taste,  136. 

enlargement  of  province,  136. 
Revival  of  learning,  139,  227. 
Romances,  cycles  of,  329. 

metrical,  268. 
Romanticism,  10-11. 
Romantic  school  of  verse,  352,  282. 

Saint-Beuve,  298. 
Satire,  218. 

political,  101. 
Schlegel,  on  drama,  221. 
Science  and  literature,  56,  59, 361. 
Scope  of  literature,  52. 
Secrecy  in  literature,  12. 


INDEX 


403 


Shairp,  43. 

Shakespeare,  38,  40,  228,  244. 

Shelley,  on  verse,  218. 

Sidney,  on  verse,  208,  217. 

Skepticism  in  literature,  164-167. 

Songs,  356. 

Specialization  in  literature,  345. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  3. 

Spirit,  literary— elements,  expression, 

etc.,  361-365. 
Stage  and  drama,  340. 
Standards,  literary,  348. 
Stedman,  234. 
Stephens,  83. 
Stevenson,  267. 
Study,  literary,  209. 
Style  and  literature,  357. 
Subjective  element  in  literature,  5. 
Subject-matter,  10, 
Sublimity,  62. 

Tacitus,  266. 
Tales,  322. 
Taste  in  poetry,  288. 

cultivation  of,  289. 

theories  of,  288. 
Teutonic  literature,  213. 


Tennyson,  9. 

Thought  and  language,  357. 
Tolstoi,  328. 

Transcendental  school,  82. 
Transitions,  214. 
Trouveresand  Troubadours,  215. 
Tyler's  American  literature,  216. 
Tyler's  Primitive  Culture,  266. 
Types  of  fiction,  325. 

Unity  of  literary  forms,  32, 

Verse,  220,  235. 

epic,  characteristics,   etc.,  265-9, 
273-5. 

dramatic,  221-2.  338. 

lyric,  rank,  etc,  221-3. 
"Victorian  age,  225. 
Vinet,  22,  52,  64. 

Webster,  Daniel,  353. 
Whitman,  7. 
Worcester,  21. 
World  literature,  8, 197. 
Writers,  great,  323. 

Zola,  328. 


